


glory and gore

by blackkat



Category: Bleach, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Developing Relationship, Fix-It, Friendship, Humor, Infinity Gems, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-13
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-03-02 16:28:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18814669
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: The extermination of half the world's population didn't leave Soul Society untouched. Desperately trying to maintain the balance between life and death with the Gotei 13 in shambles and far too much territory for the reduced number of Shinigami to cover, Shinji ends up in the Living World, hunting down a killer who's racking up a body count that threatens to tip the scales permanently. He doesn't expect said killer to be a stray Avenger, and hedefinitelydoesn't expect to get dragged into world-saving, but playing hero might just suit Shinji more than he ever thought.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT ENDGAME. MOST OF THEM ARE SPITEFUL. 
> 
> So, uh. This is not even _remotely_ related to anything I should be writing, but here it is. It's set 2 years after Infinity War, during the Endgame timeskip, though it will pull heavily from the new movie eventually. I haven't decided entirely how I want to handle things, so tags/ships are TBA. It is very much a fix-it, though, I can promise that much.

The bodies are already cold when Shinji gets there.

The ghosts haven’t moved, though. They’re huddled back against the walls of the warehouse, shaken and terrified. Shinji stands on the rafters for a long moment, watching them huddle there like broken things, and then drops his gaze to the bodies they left, scattered across the room like discarded toys.

The stroke of a sword is easily identifiable, and would be even if Shinji hadn’t come in to this expecting it.

Hitting the button on his communicator, he lifts it to his ear even as he draws Sakanade, leaps down. The tap of him landing on the cement doesn’t draw any eyes; the ghosts are still too new, too unsettled, caught off guard by their violent murder. Shinji supposes that even yakuza don’t expect to be cut down quite so quickly in the middle of a simple deal.

Like always now, there’s a long, long moment of silence on the end before the chime comes, and a tired voice says, “Captain Hirako. Did you find them?”

“Yeah,” Shinji says, displeased. “If by _them_ you mean the bodies, and not the inconsiderate bastard who keeps doing this.”

Akon huffs softly, though Shinji can’t tell if it’s in irritation or amusement. “Sorry, sir,” he says. “I thought I picked up the deaths quickly enough this time.”

“Bodies are cold,” Shinji tells him, crouching in front of the first ghost. “I don’t know how the hell they keep slipping past us, but I’m pulling enough overtime as it is. This shithead needs to stop.”

This time, Akon’s sigh is entirely agreement. “Any traces of reiatsu?” he asks, and the sound of clicking keys comes over the line.

“You still think it’s a Hollow?” Shinji asks, incredulous. “I think I’d fucking notice—”

“Or a Substitute Shinigami,” Akon cuts in, like interrupting a captain is par for the course. Of course, he grew up with Mayuri; if there was ever a bastard who needed to be interrupted, Shinji supposes it was him. “There are records of others beyond Kurosaki.”

Shinji grimaces, rubbing a hand over his forehead. Ichigo’s name still aches, something sharp and deep and quiet. Two years and the regret hasn’t faded at all, though Shinji isn’t surprised; Ichigo deserved a warrior’s death after all he did, should have gone down fighting if he went down at all, but instead he faded to dust and ash in the middle of the day, unable to stop the disintegration. They never even got a chance to give him his powers back.

Wherever he is, he’s in good company. Half of Soul Society vanished right along with him, to match the half of the Living World that shared his fate. The world is a ruin now, dark and faded and empty, and no one either living or dead remains who hasn’t lost _someone_.

“Another Substitute?” Shinji asks, dragging his attention back. “This asshole got a name or a location?”

There’s a long pause, but no sound of keys; Akon doesn’t have to look this up. “No,” he says after a moment. “No location. He went on the run with a Fullbringer boy after Soul Society executed the group of Fullbringers he’d assembled. No one knows where he is now, but his name was Ginjō Kūgo.”

Shinji makes a noise of deep disgust. Of fucking _course_ Soul Society chose that method of dealing with the matter. Just once, Shinji would like to see them answer a problem with something besides murder. “Fuck the Central 46 an’ every shithead who carries out their orders,” he mutters, flips Sakanade around, and presses the seal on the hilt to the forehead of the first ghost. He gasps like a drowning man finally surfacing, and with a whisper his soul fades away, sent on to the Rukongai.

“You’re one of those shitheads now,” Akon says, dust-dry, and the sound of keys resumes. “Can you lift the communicator higher? I think I’m getting something.”

“If you think I’m dancing to the Central 46’s tune, I’m gonna stick my foot up your ass,” Shinji threatens. Pauses for a moment as he performs the next konso, and then snickers. “Maybe we should call ‘em the Central 21 now.”

“It’s certainly more accurate,” Akon agrees with amusement, and then falls silent. Shinji lets him, focused on sending the group of ghosts on to the afterlife. It’s not like they’re a whole army, but the number is still high enough to make him itch; the balance between the Living World and Soul Society is so fragile right now that any large number of deaths is enough to start the scales tipping, and this is the fourth group of yakuza and petty criminals this asshole has hit just in this month alone. They seem pretty damn set on cleaning up the underworld with blood, and while Shinji normally wouldn’t give a damn—humans kill each other all the time, in greater numbers than this, and death is a job, a doorway, not the end of everything—the remaining Shinigami are spread so thin as it is that they can’t afford all this killing. It’s the reason that Shinji is out doing the work of an unseated officer, despite having regained his captaincy; there just aren’t enough Shinigami to do death’s work.

The rest of the world is in equally dire straights. Too many ghosts, too much death, and the populations got cut in half, but not equally enough. The various worlds beyond lost more overall, and while living humans have a set rate of growth, a soul’s growth depends on power, on resources, on a hundred other factors. There are fewer people, and fewer people with the power to become Soul Reapers. Training takes a long time, and souls age and develop more slowly than their living counterparts. There’s just no way to make up the difference, which means the balance is completely fucked. All they're able to do is throw themselves at the dam and try to plug as many holes as they can for as long as possible, bracing for the day the whole structure finally gives way.

Shinji hates it. _Loathes_ it, because he’s already spent a hundred years braced for an inevitable defeat, and this time there’s no Kurosaki Ichigo to sacrifice himself for their victory in the final moments. If there’s a way of bringing back the dusted souls, the Twelfth Division hasn’t been able to find it, and for that reason alone Shinji mildly regrets that Mayuri was part of the fifty percent that vanished. Even the worst people can be useful sometimes, and Nemu is smart, strong, wily, but she’s not Mayuri. Thankfully, usually, but…they could sure as hell use a mad genius right now.

Kisuke’s gone, too. Shinji isn’t sure whether he ended up dust or simply went underground; when he’d made it back to the shop, the whole thing had been deserted, no sign of any occupants, and there’s been no trace of any of them since. Shinji sure as hell hopes Kisuke got out while the getting was good, managed to evade whatever power it was that caused this, but—

Too many people are gone for him to be hopeful. Hope turned to dust right along with every other damn thing in this world when half the population vanished.

The last soul vanishes beneath the touch of Sakanade’s hilt, the konso seal blazing on his forehead for just a moment before it fades away, taking him with it. Shinji straightens, juggling the communicator for a moment before he manages to sheath his sword and bring the device back to his ear.

“Anything?” he asks. “If it is some other Substitute—”

But Akon makes a sound of faint frustration. “I don’t think so,” he says. “Unless Kūgo has learned how to entirely hide his reiatsu signature. The only trace of power I'm picking up is from you, and the bodies can't be old enough for it to have faded already. Whoever’s doing this is probably human.”

“ _Eh_?” That’s not what Shinji was expecting. Not even close. “Are you sure? Because this sure as hell looks like some bastard with a sword and a grudge, and humans don’t tend to carve each other up like samurai anymore.”

“Apparently someone’s fallen back into the habit,” Akon says wryly. “I'm sure. It’s either a human or a creature we’ve never encountered before.”

“Like whatever created that wave of power that wiped out half of existence?” Shinji asks sourly, and pushes off the ground, rising up though the roof and out into the gloomy evening. The clouds hang heavy over everything, and there's rain threatening. Shinji doesn’t much care; he isn't in a gigai, so it can't touch him. It suits his mood, too. Grey and bleak and nasty.

A pause, and Akon sighs. “That was a madman from space,” he says. “According to human news reports.”

Shinji scoffs, though he doesn’t try to deny it. All of this bullshit is something straight out of one of Love’s manga series. “Shit isn't balancing out,” he says.

“Not yet.” Akon sounds even more exhausted than normal. “Not ever, if the projections are right. By the time we get more Shinigami trained, it will be too late to correct for the human population expansion.”

Kyōraku ran the remaining captains through the numbers, grim-faced and resigned. Shinji's heard all the statistics, the possible outcomes, but there's no way to change things. Not enough to matter, unless they can magically recall the force of centuries-old Shinigami that the Gotei 13 has been building slowly over the years of its existence. There are no solutions, no magical saves, no impossible heroes to drag them out of this inexorable downward slide.

Shinji is tired. He’s so fucking tired, and it’s a state of being that’s been compounding itself every day for the last two years. There's no escape, either, just work. Rotations in the Living World, putting down Hollows and helping souls pass on. Nights spent drawing up assignment rosters for a division as exhausted as he is. Meetings, in between that, where nothing changes and nothing new comes to light. People are gone, and they're trying to survive. Failing, though Shinji tries not to dwell on that part more than he absolutely has to. It’s bleak, and shitty, and Shinji is almost tired enough to wish that he got dusted, too.

“So I'm lookin’ for a human or that genocidal Mad Titan shitbag,” Shinji says, largely to distract himself. “Who for some reason waltzed back to Earth and decided to spend ‘is time taking out yakuza.”

“Yes,” Akon says, dry again. It’s better than the exhaustion, at least. “Though somehow I doubt Thanos would come back after winning so completely, so my money is on a human with a grudge.”

Shinji pulls a face, displeased. So much for keeping out of the rain. “Shit. Gigai, huh?”

“Gigai,” Akon confirms. “Matsumoto should have stashed it by the exit point during her rotation. Six blocks east, then four south. We even dusted it off for you.”

Shinji already spent a hundred years in that damn gigai; another few days probably won't hurt anything. With a sound of disgust, he pushes off the edge of the building and heads for the spot, telling himself that he should at least be grateful it’s the old gigai that Kisuke made and not a new one he’ll have to break in all over again. They _itch_.

Rangiku being Rangiku, his gigai is less “stored” and more “stuffed behind a dumpster with a piece of cardboard to keep the rain off” and Shinji takes one look at it and groans.

“What the fuck is this?” he demands, tugging at a corner of its sleeve.

“The latest fashion,” Akon says, sounding ghoulishly pleased with himself. “I checked.”

“It’s a fucking _catsuit_ ,” Shinji hisses, though he wraps his trench coat around himself and ducks into the gigai. Comes up gagging at the smell of rotting food, and scrambles out from behind the dumpster. “And it _reeks_.”

“Blame Matsumoto,” Akon says without a hint of mercy. Keys click, and he adds, “It’s only been there about an hour, the smell should fade soon. And don’t complain about the fashion. I know it isn't what you usually wear, but from the images of human operatives I was able to find, this is what they use. You've got identification as an agent of a covert intelligence agency, to make things easier.”

Shinji pulls a face, already missing his newsboy cap. “You had way too much fun with this,” he accuses.

Akon’s hum in noncommittal. “You're going to have to find a human murderer who doesn’t want to be found,” he says. “I thought you could use some advantages. Besides, it’s not that much tighter than those jeans you wear.”

Shinji makes a mocking face, mimicking Akon’s words even though the scientist can't see it. Still, he heads out onto the street, glancing through the growing dusk at the shops that are still lit. three blocks down, he strikes gold; there’s a menswear shop that’s still open, and Shinji strolls in, putting on his best air of confidence even though he looks like he walked off the set of a spy film. He’s definitely going to make the whole Science Division suffer for this, the moment he has time.

Thankfully, the kid behind the counter seems glad enough to get some business that he overlooks the fact that Shinji bears passing resemblance to a stripper, and sells him a black trench coat that’s vaguely similar to the one Shinji lost to the Living World a few years ago. When it’s on, he looks respectable enough, or at least as close as he ever gets. Shinji flips the collar up as he leaves the shop, trying to ignore the drizzle that’s started.

“Next time,” he tells Akon, “don’t watch so many goddamned spy movies, an’ let me pick my own clothes.”

“It was research,” Akon says, perfectly mild, though Shinji notices any sort of promise is entirely absent. Keys click again, then something chimes, and he curses softly. “Sorry, Captain Hirako,” he says. “Rukia needs assistance. If you want me—”

“I’ll call,” Shinji tells him, and ends the transmission, tucking the communicator back into his pocket. Rukia probably needs a hell of a lot more support than he does; she’s stuck with a whole section of India that ended up absent the local death spirits, so she’s filling in for them, and up to her ears in extra work. Shinji's not exactly looking forward to his own rotation abroad, though he knows it’s coming up; with his luck, he’ll get stuck in the most heavily populated city in the world, without any backup, trying to deal with all the new ghosts that keep popping up as people die of hunger, of violence, of sickness. Too many new deaths, not enough Soul Reapers, and it’s like a wave that keeps building and building as it looms over them.

With a huff, Shinji shoves his hair back behind his ear, scanning the street. He knows Tokyo fairly well, since he and the Vizards spent a decent amount of time hiding out here, and there are some sketchy areas close to here. He can either go back to the warehouse and look for hints there, or he can wander around and hope the asshole will strike again tonight.

Shinji drums his fingers against his thigh, debating, and then huffs. Whoever is doing this is experienced, practiced, and good at moving quickly and covering their tracks; he’s not going to have a hope of picking them up at the scene of the last crime, but he might be able to stop a new one.

It’s a pain to have to wade through the humanity of Tokyo, instead of just flying over it, and Shinji mutters a few curses at the fact that the culprit isn't a Hollow the way they’d thought, but picks a side street and turns, winding his way deeper into the city. The lack of people is ghostly, and the wrecked cars make it seem like some sort of post-apocalyptic wasteland. Other areas have managed some for of cleanup, even if it’s not perfect, but Shinji supposes that here fewer people care. He skirts the glass from a broken shop window, then checks the skyline, trying to gauge how far he is from the warehouse with the bodies. It’s possible there are more yakuza somewhere close by, waiting as backup in case things went bad or just loitering until the rest of the group returns. If the killer’s looking for them, Shinji might be able to find them first.

With a sound of disgust, Shinji stuffs his hands into his pockets, then pokes Sakanade where she’s sleeping in his soul, more for something to do than because he needs her help. She knows that, of course, and her mental swat is both annoyed and pointed. Shinji prods her again, just because, and she slits open one yellow eye and glares.

 _I think even you can manage a human, Shinji_ , she tells him, unimpressed. _Fuck off._

Shinji pulls a face that’s full off offence. “So yer leavin’ me stranded in the Living World with no backup, no one to call fer help, and a human to find in the middle of Tokyo?” he demands. “What the hell kind of partner are you?”

 _The kind who’s sleeping_ , Sakanade retorts without sympathy. _Call me if there’s an Arrancar. Or better yet, call me if there’s a Vasto Lorde_.

“Call me if there’s a Vasto Lorde,” Shinji repeats mockingly, ignoring the look from a young woman on the other side of the street. “You're a lot of help, bitch. Ow!”

Pointedly, Sakanade flips her tufted tail over her face and drops back to sleep in the sand, leaving Shinji effectively alone in his mindspace. He rolls his eyes, but looks ahead of him, stretching out his reiatsu and trying to feel for fresh deaths.

It’s a hell of a lot easier for Akon and the Twelfth to do this sort of shit. Faster and more accurate, since they’ve got computers that can register the sudden burst of reiatsu from a soul leaving its body. Of course, it’s _possible_ to do on his own; that’s how Shinji learned, long before the technology advanced. He was a captain for two hundred years before Aizen fucked him over, and he’s seen a hell of a lot of the changes that have come to Soul Society over that time. When he first set foot in the Academy, there were classes on this sort of shit, and he remembers well enough. Easier for a captain, given their power levels, but even an unseated officer would technically be able to do this.

A breath in, a breath out. Shinji comes to a halt in the center of the street, feeling the ripple of the natural world’s reishi around him, just out of reach. A change of state refines it, releases enough energy that he can tap into it, and he sends little trickles of power out like ripples on still water, searching for that shift. One moment’s change, the opening of a doorway as a soul departs, and—

There's old death here. So much of it, like spreading rot across the surface of the world. Not even death in the way Shinji has always known it, the slipping through of souls from one existence to another. This is a thread being cut with a sharpened sword, the sudden abrupt disappearance of everything on the far side of the cut to leave stray strands twisting in the breeze. Not death, but nonexistence, and it makes Shinji's skin prickle. It’s unnatural, obscene; life is a cycle, a wheel, and this is someone wrenching the whole wheel from its moorings and crushing it underfoot. It’s _wrong_ , and Shinji's never known anything more instinctively.

“Shit,” he mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. Clicks his tongue ring against the back of his teeth, lifts his head, and focuses, shutting out all the old deaths and sudden disappearances. Calls up, instead, the edges of fresh deaths spread out around him, dewdrops on a spider’s web. Too many of those, as well; they weigh on Shinji, itching at him, but there are only so many he can get to in the seventy-two hours of his rotation. A hell of a lot of these souls are going to become Hollows, and the fact that there's nothing the Gotei 13 can do about it pisses Shinji right the hell off.

The Hollows growing in the world are another reason the scales keep tipping. There's too much pain, too much grief. Souls keep turning from Pluses to Hollows faster than they’ve ever managed before, and that means unseated officers are having a harder and harder time putting them down before they evolve. More Shinigami deaths put them at even _more_ of a disadvantage, and Shinji knows they're all stretched thin, all working through exhaustion and their own grief. Soon, there aren’t going to be enough Shinigami to cover Japan, let alone whatever other areas need them.

Shinji's own rotation out of Japan is looming, and he’s dreading it. Three days here, sixteen hours back in the Seireitei to collapse and sleep, eight hours to cram in as much administration work as he possibly can since he’s still the captain and technically in charge, and then he’ll immediately be punted to somewhere in the Living World again, but this time in a random city that’s sent out an urgent request for assistance to the other regions of Soul Society. Last time Shinji got stuck in England, by virtue of being one of the few Shinigami who’s been there before and speaks decent English, and _that_ was a shitshow he definitely doesn’t want to reprise.

The fact that Yamamoto turned the Rukongai into one of the most organized, structured sections of Soul Society is a mixed blessing. They’ve got more of a force of death gods than anywhere else, but that leaves them scrambling to fill in gaps in places that don’t, or areas where communication was too centralized and is now gone. Some places in South America work through independent agents, and with half the coordinators dead, the whole system is staggering along. Shinji never thought he’d be grateful for the Seireitei being a warlike, militaristic society in love with rigorous structure and killing anyone who steps out of line, but at least the chain of command is pretty clear.

The flicker-flare of a soul passing over into death catches Shinji's attention, makes him turn as it blazes briefly against his reiatsu and then settles into a steady hum. A violent death, Shinji thinks, feeling out the edges of it, and takes the next street that runs east. Just one death, but it’s within the area where the rest of the gang could be, close by. The storefronts here are largely darkened, the windows covered, but Shinji follows the sensation of a new soul down four blocks, to a lighted building. There are more lights in the upper floors, and Shinji tips his head, assessing the way his reiatsu curls around living bodies. There are more people here than in the rest of the places along the street, and that’s enough to make him wary. And—

There. Down the narrow alley beside the building, towards the rear door, Shinji finds the body. It’s been shoved to the side of the stairs, half-hidden by boxes, but it’s a man with a slit throat, eyes still staring emptily. His ghost sits next to his body, fingering the shorn end of the chain that bound him to the Living World, and when Shinji crouches down in front of him he looks up, expression haunted.

“I didn’t even hear him coming,” he says helplessly.

“Yeah,” Shinji says wryly. “Shit happens like that sometimes. He went in?”

The ghost nods. “The boss is supposed to be here soon,” he says. “I think he wanted to get in and wait.”

With an irritated sigh, Shinji runs a hand through his hair. “Yeah, that sounds like this asshole. He already hit the warehouse.”

The ghost’s face twists with grief. “That bastard,” he says. “We’ve been _helping_ people.”

He can't be more than twenty. Shinji puts a hand on his head, trying for comforting, and says, “I know you were. But you can't stay here. Wanna move on and see the other side?”

His eyes flicker over the alley, the empty street beyond, and he laughs without humor. “Is it better than here?”

“Grass, trees, lots of peace,” Shinji says with a shrug. “Could be a hell of a lot worse.”

The man nods. “I’ll go,” he says.

Shinji reaches into empty air, concentrates, and draws Sakanade out of his soul. The blade shimmers into being, reflecting the neon lights above, and Shinji flips it around. “This won’t even sting,” he promises, and taps the hilt against the man’s forehead, willing the doorway open. There's a gust like a misplaced wind from somewhere else, and the ghost smiles faintly.

“Be careful,” he says. “He has a sword, but he was carrying a bow, too.”

At least it’s not a gun, Shinji thinks with a sigh, bushing to his feet as the ghost vanishes. He steps past the body, leaning down to close the staring eyes before he heads up the short flight of stairs. The door is unlocked, turns easily under his hand, and Shinji lets himself into a darkened stockroom, Sakanade ready in his grip. There's music playing from somewhere upstairs, a low, steady beat, and Shinji follows the sound of it, slipping through the dim hallways and up a flight of steps. There aren’t any more bodies, and he hasn’t felt any death since the first, but he’s still wary. There are a hell of a lot of places to hide in this place, and if this bastard plans on lying in wait for whatever boss is coming, Shinji is going to have to find him before he can kill anyone else.

On the second floor, he pauses, assessing. Up one more story is the source of the music, but that seems like a noticeable target, something that will alert a visitor if the people up there are taken out. The killer probably wants someone able to answer the door, after all, and they residents can't do that if they've all been executed. So that means he went to ground, and the best place to do that would be up here. The windows are covered, the whole floor is dim, and the floor is open but scattered with concrete pillars.

Shinji slings his sword over his shoulder, grinning, even though it feels more like danger than humor. A touch of will calls up a whirling scatter of star-bright reiryoku shards, and Shinji breathes out, narrowing his concentration down. There's a shimmer in the air, a gust of wind that he can't feel, and the particles spin madly, then whirl out, condensing into long, tangling ribbons. Shinji studies them for a moment, then reaches out, wrapping his fist around one in particular. It goes taut, and suddenly Shinji can see the path of it, running across the room and disappearing around the edge of a wall.

“Gotcha,” he says, and draws Sakanade from her sheath.


	2. Chapter 2

The angle is a bad one for attack, and Shinji isn't about to duck around a blind corner and behind a wall without knowing what’s waiting for him. This asshole has already killed at _least_ forty people in the past month, and Shinji's been hunting him every time he has a minute to spare during his missions. He’s seen the guy’s handiwork, knows he’s dangerous even if he is just a human.

Still, Shinji's been a captain for almost three hundred years, survived the trickiest madman the Rukongai ever spit out despite that madman being out for his blood, and he’s not about to let a human get the drop on him. Letting the reiraku swirl back into nothingness, he saunters across the room, grip on Sakanade’s hilt tightening faintly, and comes to a stop in front of the wall that divides the main room. It’s a small space, tucked away—a good place to hide, if no one knows there's an intruder to look for in the first place.

Propping his shoulder against the wall, Shinji reaches out, tapping the tip of Sakanade’s sheathed blade against the closed door. “Hey,” he drawls, voice loud enough to carry into the room without alerting anyone upstairs. He doesn’t want to put any more potential victims in the middle of this if it turns into a fight. “Ya know, that guy you murdered on the back stairs had a hell of a lot to say about you. I can repeat it, if ya promise not to wash my mouth out with soap.”

The silence is tense, breathless. Shinji cocks his head, listening for any sound of movement, and then snickers. “Holding your breath? That might work in hide ‘n seek, asshole, but if you make me come in there to get you, you'll regret it.”

Still no sound. Still no movement. Shinji taps his sword against the door again, and says impatiently, “Make me wait another ten seconds and I’m turning this whole wall into kindling, shithead. Bet _that’ll_ mess up your plans to take out the boss, ri—”

The door slams open, and Shinji is already moving as a katana slices through the air where his head just was. Hitting the floor, he rolls, comes to his feet with Sakanade unsheathed and flashing down, and the other sword slides off the angled blade with a ringing sound. In the same moment, Shinji kicks out, knocking the man back into the wall and then lunging. Even off balance, though, the man’s quick; he drops, ducks to the side and comes up with a whirl of his sword. Trained, Shinji thinks, though after all the deaths that’s not a surprise. There's a bow on his back, too, and even though Shinji works best with some distance, he’s not going to give this shithead any more of an advantage, so he stays close. Dogs the man’s steps as he tries to retreat, slashes out, pushes forward, and the man’s dark hood tips like he’s looking for an exit even as he blocks the blows.

After all the times Shinji's tripped through this man’s crime scenes, he’s got a pretty good idea of how he intends to escape; the window in the corner is blacked out with dark paint instead of being boarded up, and the man’s retreating in that direction. Logical, Shinji thinks, and gives him a wide grin, then lashes out. The stranger ducks Sakanade’s blade, sweeps a foot out in an arc even as he hits the floor, and Shinji leaps back out of range. He slides through a shadow, through a shaft of light from the lower floor—

There's a sharp inhale, and the stranger pulls back so suddenly he almost staggers. “You're _SHIELD_?” he demands.

Shinji frowns, because that’s Japanese, but spoken with a definite accent. American, if he’s not mistaken, and that’s entirely out of place given the way this guy is dressed. “You're _American_?” he retorts, and belatedly remembers what Akon said about giving him ID from a shadowy government agency of some kind. It would be too much a of a giveaway to dig out the identification card Shinji can feel in his pocket in order to check, so rolling with the accusation is probably his best chance here.

There's a pause, like the man is torn, and his eyes flicker to the window and then back again, just a bare moment of distraction. Shinji doesn’t bother to take advantage of it; he’ll kill the guy if he has to, if there’s no other way to stop him, but the Living World needs every soul in it to stay where they are right now, and Shinji doesn’t want to add to the death toll unless he’s forced.

“What do you want?” the man finally says, though he doesn’t even pretend to drop his guard.

Shinji rolls his eyes. “You're killing yakuza and low-level street thugs,” he says, unimpressed. “Fucking knock it off, or I’ll make you.”

There's the faintest tightening of the man’s fingers where he grips his sword. “They're murderers,” he says. “And you're _defending_ them?”

“You're looking pretty well like a murderer, too, from where I'm standing,” Shinji says lazily, and doesn’t lower Sakanade. “Didja know yakuza sometimes help out their communities, movin’ supplies and shit faster than the government can? That’s what these ones are doing. An’ you’re executing them like they don’t deserve a fair trial. Makes you more of a criminal than they are, in my opinion.”

Another long pause, and then the man takes a breath that sounds like angry laughter. “Are you SHIELD or HYDRA?” he demands.

Both names are pretty much unfamiliar, but then, Shinji ignored human politics right up until half the world disappeared. He’s not exactly going into this with a lot of background. “Does it fucking matter?” he demands, and takes a step forward. “You need to get your head out of your ass and stop killing people. There are few enough left as it is.”

The man’s eyes are hard, and at that there’s a flicker of something even harder in them. Anger, tempered by grief until it’s something that cuts even deeper. “And if these gangs have anything to say about it, there are going to be even fewer,” he says, and matches Shinji's step forward with two steps back. “They're all the same.”

Shinji hisses in irritation, feels it stir Sakanade where she’s sleeping in his soul. “This is bigger than a couple of gangs, shitstain,” he snaps, and Sakanade’s eager purr vibrates through him like a tuning fork struck too close. “This is the whole world that’ll take a nosedive straight off a goddamn cliff if you keep wiping out big groups, yeah?”

The man’s gaze flickers past him half a second before there’s a shout from the stairwell, then a gunshot. Instantly, the stranger throws himself back, right into the painted-over window, and it shatters with a crash. Shinji lunges to follow, less concerned with getting out of sight and more worried about preventing the stupid asshole from falling to his death. Even as he leans out, though, an arrow slams into the side of the building, a line pulls taut, and the man lands on his feet, rolls, and comes up running.

“Fuck,” Shinji mutters, and leaps after him, gathering reishi beneath his feet. One step, then another, and he hits the street lightly, then follows, getting out of sight of the building before he slows and comes to a stop. Now that he’s found the killer’s reiraku he’ll be able to track him no matter where he is in the city, and he can't imagine the guy will immediately going out killing again before he figures out whether Shinji is a threat, so he tucks himself back under a tattered awning to avoid the increasing drizzle and fishes his communicator out of his pocket. When he presses the button, there's a long, long stretch of silence before the chime comes.

“Captain Hirako,” a woman’s voice says coolly.

Shinji doesn’t take it personally; that’s just how Nemu sounds, from what he’s seen of her. “Lieutenant,” he returns. “You finally kick Akon out of the chair?”

“I stabbed him with a tranquillizer dart,” Nemu confirms without hesitation, perfectly polite. “He was refusing to leave even though his shift was over.”

Shinji snickers, well able to imagine it. Nemu is all the best parts of her creator, without any of the mad scientist tendencies. Or at least, none that are actively harmful to those around her. “Good, the little workaholic deserves it,” he says. “Got a minute for some research?”

“Of course, Captain.” The chair creaks as Nemu settles down, and keys click. “How can I assist you?”

Shinji thinks about making a phone sex joke, but Hiyori will probably stuff herself down the communicator line to whack him with a sandal on instinct, so he keeps it to himself with a flicker of regret. Instead, he pulls out the ID badge that’s been digging into his leg, looks it over, and says, “Akon stuck me as a member of SHIELD, but I've got no fucking clue what that’s supposed to be an’ a target who seems to know a hell of a lot about it. Somethin’ called HYDRA, too.”

There's a pause, and then Nemu says, “Akon made a note in the file. One moment.”

“Take your time,” Shinji says, only vaguely sour. Given the numbers the asshole has been killing, he takes priority on this mission; Shinji can leave the regular souls of the dead to whatever sorry Shinigami comes on after him. It irks, but it’s how things go.

It takes until a count of thirty-seven for Nemu’s voice to come back on the line. “SHIELD is the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division, an American-based body that operates worldwide. They’re considered a spy organization, but they're also responsible for the Avengers Initiative that brought together the people who tried to stop Thanos.”

Shinji frowns, considering that carefully. Spies and heroes don’t tend to go together, for the most part, but­—it’s a lot of power, between the two. That’s probably enough to explain it. People always want power.

Risking a glance back at the street, he checks for any armed yakuza-types approaching, and when nothing is apparent he slings Sakanade over his shoulder and heads up the street, keeping his steps brisk but not hurried. The sense of the killer’s reiraku isn't quite tangible, but it’s close enough to the surface for Shinji to follow through the twisting streets, through a run-down apartment building and then out the other side, to where a building is half-collapsed over the truck that crashed into it. Old, now, though Shinji can feel the old deaths that linger like the echo of an abruptly cut off scream.

Over the line of the communicator, he can hear the quiet murmur of Nemu’s voice, giving direction and advising other Shinigami as they call in. She’s the captain of the Twelfth now, for all intents and purposes, even if she can't officially take the seat without achieving bankai. It’s enough to make Shinji a little more tolerant of the delay, and when she comes back on the line with a murmured apology he just waves her off.

“Avengers Initiative, huh?” he asks.

“Yes, sir.” Nemu turns away from the mic for a moment, voice going distant, but a second later she’s back. “A group of humans with unique abilities, chosen for their combat potential. They fought Thanos in Africa when he appeared.”

“For all the fucking good it did,” Shinji mutters, skirting another wrecked car and following the reiraku as it unspools down a side street.

Nemu’s soft breath might be weary agreement, but Shinji isn’t sure. “Would you like a full accounting of the members?” she asks. “Our files are incomplete, but I can request information from the other areas of Soul Society if it would help.”

Shinji considers. Knowing more never hurts, but at the same time, this will hopefully be over with quickly. If he never has to deal with this kind of situation again, he’ll be overjoyed. Still—

“Yeah,” he says, displeased, and eyes the garden ahead of him. The reiraku crosses it, and Shinji _should_ do the same, but he’s not feeling overly charitable right now. Gathering a twist of reiatsu, he shifts forward into a flash-step, crossing the area in an instant and coming to a halt in the street on the other side. “Get me the files an’ I’ll review ‘em when I get back. Hinamori still doing okay with the division?”

There’s a thoughtful pause. “She’s ill,” Nemu says finally.

“No shit,” Shinji mutters, rubbing a hand over his face. With Hitsugaya gone, Momo’s been backsliding, her progress since Aizen’s imprisonment shrinking. Shinji’s doing his best, but—everyone responds to grief differently, and Momo’s version is all too familiar.

Another moment of silence, and then Nemu says, “I will take her out for dinner once I have the files together, if you allow it, Captain.”

Shinji snorts, even if he can’t entirely fight a smile. “I’m not her damn father,” he says dismissively, though, because he has a reputation to maintain. “Do whatever the hell you want.”

“Yes, sir.” Nemu doesn’t sound overly impressed by his bravado, but says, “I have the information on HYDRA if you’d like it, Captain.”

“Yeah, hit me.” Shinji eyes the street around him, feeling the itch of eyes on him, though he can’t tell if it’s real or imagined. The reiraku runs straight ahead along the street, towards a taller building in the distance, but Shinji can’t decide if it’s another attempt at misdirection or where the killer actually went to ground.

“HYDRA is a terrorist group that has been active since at least the second World War,” Nemu tells him promptly. “They were found to be responsible for infiltrating SHIELD several years ago, before some of the Avengers brought both organizations down in an attempt to root out HYDRA. There’s a direct association with the Nazi party and their ideologies.”

“Shit,” Shinji mutters, rubbing a hand over his eyes. Nazis. Fucking _of course_. The only thing that could make the disappearance of half the world better is the addition of a secret Nazi organization. “An’ this asshole thought I could be HYDRA?”

“Given their link with SHIELD, it seems to be a logical conclusion,” Nemu agrees.

Shinji would beg to differ. He’s _stopping_ the guy from killing, and that doesn’t seem like something HYDRA would bother with. Then again, there’s no saying how idiots’ minds work.

“If I hit ‘im with a kikanshinki, think he’d quit this shit?” Shinji asks. The device is in the pocket of his pants in his soul form, so he’ll need to abandon the gigai to get to it, but his body collapsing in the middle of a confrontation with the killer is probably a good way to catch him off guard anyway.

“Memory replacement is only recommended for short-term memories,” Nemu says blandly. “According to the reports received from Mexico, France, and Russia, this man’s recorded killings go back several months, and possibly years. Use of a kikanshinki is not advisable.”

Shinji makes a sound of disgust, sweeping a careful look around the area as he waits for a pair of cars to pass. There’s still that itch, a certainty that he’s being watched, and after a hundred years on the run from Aizen and the Gotei 13 both, Shinji’s not inclined to doubt his instincts.

“‘Course this asshole wouldn’t make it easy,” he mutters, and takes a step out into the empty road. Takes another, trying to feel where the observation is coming from, if it’s the killer, but the reiraku Shinji is following vanishes into the building ahead of him, and he can’t see any hint of an observer. It’s too far away, too high; unless there are binoculars involved, that’s not the source.

“Mayuri-sama was working on a longer-term device before his disappearance,” Nemu offers. “I can direct Akon to attempt to finish it, if you would like, Captain Hirako.”

“Nah,” Shinji scoffs. “Better to leave that asshole’s work as it is. ‘S probably fucking booby-trapped, and—”

He hears the hiss half an instant too late. Something dark slams into Shinji’s shoulder, knocking him clear off his feet, and he goes down hard with a cry trapped between his teeth. Somewhere close by, someone screams, but there’s no time to pay attention to the humans. Shinji rolls out of the way of another arrow, then grits his teeth and twists to his feet with a snarl that’s equal parts rage and pain.

“Captain?” Nemu’s voice crackles over the communicator, mild alarm in her tone. Shinji’s a little touched to know she cares. “Captain, what’s wrong?”

“Later, Nemu,” Shinji says, and cuts the connection with a flicker of regret, shoving the device away. In the same moment, he drags Sakanade free of her sheath and twists, the blade flashing straight through the shaft of a third arrow as it flies. Shinji ducks the pieces, then reaches up, grabs the feathered end of the arrow in his shoulder, and with a snarl shoves it the rest of the way through the muscle. Reaching up behind himself with his good arm, he grips the shaft awkwardly, takes a bracing breath, and wrenches it all the way out, letting it drop to the pavement in a splatter of blood.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he hisses through clenched teeth, and ducks away from another arrow. He has to move too fast to be human, if he wants to avoid them, but he _can_ even if it’s a pain. It shouldn’t be, because this fucker is human, shouldn’t have this speed and accuracy, but—

A fifth arrow is already in the air and heading right for Shinji’s shoulder when he comes to his feet, shifts a little too far to the left. There’s half a second to calculate the trajectory, to realize that in moving just a bit too fast he’s changed the target. What should have hit his upper arm is going to take him in the stomach, and _that’s_ a fucking nasty wound to deal with.

Shinji has half a second to make a choice, and he does. Cursing, he hurls himself out of the gigai in the instant before the arrow hits, and the false body crumples even as the shot strikes it in the stomach. With a heavy thud, the gigai drops, and Shinji hurls himself up through empty air, reishi carrying him high. There are people shouting, and one woman has rushed to the gigai, crouching down beside it with an air that says she knows what she’s doing. Doctor, maybe, Shinji thinks critically, but he leaves her to it instead of lingering. The gigai has a healing factor, thanks to Kisuke’s fiddling, and it will maintain just enough function to trick people into thinking it’s alive. Shinji will come back and find it later; for now, he has an arrow-happy shithead to deal with. And fuck himself, honestly, for not paying more attention to the ghost’s warning about the guy carrying a bow.

“Like fighting a goddamned Quincy,” Shinji mutters to his zanpakuto, and Sakanade huffs in displeasure, straightening from her nest. Tattered wings spread wide, sweep down, and her claws rake the sand to leave deep furrows behind. There's a shimmer around her, a touch of something _other,_ and Shinji hisses at her in irritation as he approaches the apartment building.

“Fuck off, Sakanade,” he orders. “Weren’t you just sayin’ I didn’t need help against a human? Hollow strength’s definitely overkill.”

 _You woke me up,_ Sakanade retorts. _If I have to be up, I want to have some fun._

“Yeah, yeah,” Shinji mutters, but he doesn’t protest. Giving this guy a bit of a fright isn't something he’s going to object to, and Sakanade’s good for that.

Pausing in front of the apartment building, Shinji gives the reiraku a light tug, watching the curl as it rises though the building, one strand of a tangle of humanity. This one keeps going past most of the others, though, rising up though the floors until it reaches the wide, flat roof, and Shinji smiles thinly, fingering Sakanade’s hourglass-shaped guard. He lets a curl of reishi carry him up like a stray breeze, landing lightly on the edge of the low wall edging the rooftop. A quick glance misses any other figures, but a pause and a more careful second look draws Shinji's eyes to the end of the ribbon, hunkered down behind an air conditioning unit. The man from before is leaning out over the edge of the wall just enough to level his bow down the street, and contrary to Shinji's expectations he doesn’t have any sort of scope or binoculars. He isn't even squinting beneath the shadows of his hood, but his mouth is set in an expression that’s almost rueful as he watches the commotion around Shinji's gigai.

Shinji would be a little more sympathetic, except he just got _shot_ , and even if it happened while he was in a gigai, the wound still aches in his soul form. Tapping Sakanade’s blade against his leg, he considers the killer for a long moment, then tips his head and smirks.

“We’ve been playing this shit on human territory,” he tells Sakanade. “How about we kick him onto our turf, yeah?”

Sakanade’s laughter whispers through his head, and Shinji flips his sword around, lets the seal on the end of the hilt start to burn. The konso seal sends souls on, but it’s got more purposes than just that; a bit of will, a hard enough hit, and it can do the exact same thing as that fancy Substitute Shinigami badge Ukitake gave Ichigo. It’s a blow to the one on the receiving end, but Shinji just got an arrow punched though his shoulder; he’s not feeling charitable right now.

Letting the very edge of his control slip, Shinji touches down on the concrete, feels the lash of Hollow-touched power whirl out like lightning striking an open field. Stone cracks like a shot, and the man wrenches around, on his feet in an instant with an arrow on the bowstring. He’s human, though, and nothing else. His eyes pass right over Shinji, and Shinji snickers without sympathy.

“Let’s expand your worldview a bit, asshole,” he says, and lunges, slamming Sakanade’s hilt into the killer’s forehead with a lance of willpower behind it.

White light blazes, and there’s a cry. The dark-clad body drops, bow clattering from his fingertips, and Shinji grabs the soul as it comes free, gets a hand on the man's shocked face and slams him down into the stone on his back.

Getting a knee on the man’s chest, he leans over him and grins, wrapping a hand around the chain keeping him tethered to his mortal body. “There ya are,” he says, not even trying to keep it from being a taunt. “Ready to listen to me now, asshole?”


	3. Chapter 3

Whatever this is, Clint is absolutely certain that he didn’t sign up for it.

“What the _hell_?” he manages, and the man—the man Clint just _shot in the stomach_ , because he can’t miss even when he’s trying—laughs, pulling back with a sharp-edged grin. Flipping his katana around like a toy, he rises, shifts three steps away to give Clint room, and in the process gives him a perfect line of sight to—

Well. Himself. His own body, crumpled on the ground like a dead thing, and Clint has to swallow even as his eyes trace the thick chain that runs from the body’s chest to his own. There’s no pain where it’s anchored into his skin, and Clint gets a hand on it, tugs hard but doesn’t feel more than a faint twinge.

“Easy,” the man says, still watching with an entirely inappropriate amount of amusement. “Pull that shit out an’ you’ll really regret it. If you turn into a Hollow, I get to cut you in half an’ not have to deal with this fucked up rampage you’re on.”

Bewilderment sours into anger, and Clint rolls to his feet, comes up bristling. “Whatever the hell you just did, undo it,” he snaps. “That group traffics _drugs_ , and taking them out—”

The man scoffs loudly, sheathing his sword and slinging it over his shoulder. The confidence in the motion makes Clint itch; he might be baseline human, but he’s still dangerous, and assholes who ignore that deserve what they get. “I told you,” the stranger says. “I don’t give a damn about the morality. You need to fucking stop, because if you keep killing people and kickin’ souls out of the Living World, the scales are gonna tip. Tip ‘em too far and you get death sliding into life, an’ no way to get ‘em apart again.”

“What?” Clint asks, bewildered. Nothing about that makes sense. “The _Living World_?” The capital letters in that one are obvious, but— “Is there _another_ world you should be worried about? Is this a parallel dimension thing? Because somehow I don’t think small-time gangsters kicking it will matter much to string theory.”

That gets him a truly epic eye-roll, complete with curled lip and a hell of a lot of disdain. “Only one guy I know is smart enough to worry about string theory, an’ you’re not him. Look around you, shithead. What exactly do you think this is?”

“I don’t know, an out of body experience? I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that leftover sushi,” Clint says sarcastically, but…he looks around himself, can’t help it. His body, crumpled and still—not breathing, and that’s giving him pretty terrible thoughts about brain damage right now—with the attached chain, the fact that he _knows_ he hit his stalker in the gut with an arrow and yet the guy looks perfectly fine even though his body is bleeding out back on the street, the odd, half-felt wind that swirls the guy’s long grey coat around his knees but doesn’t touch the plants on the balcony below them. It’s all _off_ , strange and unsettling and enough to make Clint’s skin crawl.

“What the hell _is_ this?” Clint asks, because the guy was as good as dead, and people don’t come _back_ from that kind of wound. Not without a hospital stay at the very least, if even then.

The man snorts, like Clint’s confusion and rising alarm is amusing. “This is you as a ghost,” he says, grinning. “Welcome to your first glimpse of the afterlife. Figured it would get your attention better ‘an trying to talk to ya outright again.”

“ _Afterlife_ ,” Clint repeats, and swallows, not sure if he what he feels is incredulity or a sudden, crippling surge of hope. “You—everyone who died is—”

The stranger’s sharp eyes soften, shift away for a moment before they flicker back. “No,” he says, casual, like it’s not a crushing thing. “Not the people that got popped outta existence. We’re still tryin’ to find them, but no luck so far. If they died normally, though? Yeah, they’re either in Soul Society or reincarnated back into the Living World.”

Fuck. Clint digs his fingers into his thighs, trying to breathe through the surge of grief that feels like losing Laura and the kids all over again. They’re Barney’s family, Clint’s by default now that Barney is gone, and—they’re _his_ in every way that matters. He’s been keeping them safe for years now, and they died right in front of him. He hadn’t gone to fight Thanos when the rest of the Avengers did, hadn’t thought it would matter, and maybe it wouldn’t have, but—

What if it _had_?

There's a huff, touched with irritation and dark humor, and the man squats down in front of Clint, tipping his head. “This some kind of revenge kick?” he demands. “Was the big purple ballsack tied up with gangs and now yer just wiping ‘em all out?”

Clint laughs, strangled and humorless. “It’s not revenge,” he says. “I'm helping. These people are taking advantage of everyone who’s lost something, and—”

The hilt of the stranger’s sword whacks him on top of the head, and Clint yelps, lashes out on instinct. Looking bored, the man bounces to his feet, avoiding the punch neatly, and says, “Fuck you and yer moral crisis, asshole. You're killing people, and death has too much to do already. Take a fucking break, and let me put in my time where it’s actually necessary, yeah?”

“What, they stopped paying you your overtime?” Clint asks, poison-sweet, and gets up, glancing down at himself as the chain seems to move with him, never quite too long or short. Like this he’s not in his red-and-black armor, snatched from Avengers Tower while Tony was elsewhere, but something older. SHIELD-issued field-wear, and it’s a bittersweet thing. He hasn’t been a SHIELD agent since Ultron happened.

The blond’s mouth curls, an expression of such overt disgust that it’s almost amusing. “I _told_ you,” he says sourly. “’S not about that. Not about me or you or right and wrong. These assholes _need_ to stay alive, because there aren’t enough Shinigami to keep up with everyone who’s dying.”

Clint pauses, watching him. He’s got a pretty good nose for bullshit, after his years as an agent, and he can't sense any in this guy’s words. Either he’s way better at lying than Clint thought, or—

Or he’s telling the truth.

The idea turns Clint's stomach, rises up like guilt. He’s been doing _good_. He’s been helping, taking out the bottom-feeders preying on the unfortunate while the world’s governments stagger along like animals in their death throes. Executing criminals is what Clint has been doing for years; this is just execution that someone at SHIELD hasn’t been able to sign off on.

“Leaving these bastards alive won't help anyone,” Clint says bitterly, and reaches down to pick up his dropped bow. It’s weird as hell and more than a little unsettling when his fingers just go through it, and he pulls back with a grimace. “And they're not going to listen to a polite warning.”

There's a long, long stretch of silence, and when Clint turns around to check that he hasn’t been abandoned, the man is staring at him with narrow eyes, and suddenly he isn't just a lanky, unassuming blond guy in skinny jeans. There’s something _hard_ about him, something vicious. Clint's never had the best self-preservation instincts, but he recoils, hackles up, like someone just dropped a live cobra on his foot. Something _burns_ , and the air is heavy, hot, hard to breathe. Clint's head spins, and—

The naked blade of a sword is suddenly at his throat, bewildering when he didn’t even see the man move. The air around it shimmers like a heat mirage, and Clint freezes, wary as he meets brown eyes that are bleeding into a different color, like ink is painting the whites one drop at a time.

“I don’t think you're gettin’ it,” the man says, and there's the faintest echoing undertone to his voice, a doubling that puts up the hairs on the back of Clint's neck. “You’ve got some idea that I'm here to kick you onto a better path or somethin’. But I'm here to _kill you_ , asshole. You don’t stop, you don’t get the hell out of Japan and turn over a new leaf, an’ I'm going to pick killing one person over standin’ back and letting you kill however many more it takes before you realize that that big, empty hole in yer chest isn't going away.”

Clint's breath tangles in his throat, but he raises a hand, knocks the sword away from his face with the bracer on his arm and pretends he can't feel it starting to cut through material that’s stopped more knives than Clint can count. “And all the people these guys kill down the road? That’s an acceptable loss?” he demands.

With a snarl, the man stalks closer, grabs Clint by the front of his jacket, and on instinct Clint grabs his wrist and tears his hand free, shoves forward and ducks to the side to haul his arm up behind him. Just as his grip firms, though, the man moves in a blur, leaping up, twisting over. A foot lands hard in the center of Clint's back, but he moves with the blow, rolls and comes up and turns, automatically reaching for the bow on his back before he remembers—

His fingers close over familiar carbon steel, and he has half an instant of confused relief before the bow is up and drawn, an arrow on the string and aimed right at the blond.

For a long moment, the man stares at him, narrow and assessing. And then he smiles, shifting his grip on the sword in his hand and raising it. “All right,” he says. “I can see you need a little more convincin’. That’s fine.”

Something like alarm prickles down Clint's spine. That’s the same smile Natasha wears when she’s got someone right where she wants them, and that isn't a comparison that says anything good for Clint's chances. People who look like that tend to know _exactly_ how dangerous they are. “Look—” he starts.

The man raises his sword in front of him, turns it so it’s parallel to his body with the point towards the ground. “Collapse, Sakanade,” he says.

This time the blaze feels like looking into the heart of an explosion, fierce enough to make Clint stagger back a step. He puts a hand up to guard his face as the light fades, squints through the afterimage—

The sword is spinning. It looks like an entirely different blade now, slimmer and longer, with five holes down the length of the blade, and the pommel is a ring. The man’s hand doesn’t seem to be gripping anything in the center of it as it rotates around his fist, and he’s still wearing that thin, threatening smile.

“Welcome,” he says, darkly amused, “to the Inverted World.”

Like the words are a trigger, Clint staggers, his vision wavering. When the spinning stops, he loses his breath on a sound of alarm, because the whole world has turned itself upside down. The man is hovering in midair, but the building Clint is on is inverted, the sky suddenly beneath him. His feet are still planted on the rooftop, but the roof it where the sky used to be, and Clint wrenches back. He has an arrow in the air before he even has to think about it, but the man vanishes with a flicker of movement before it can reach him.

Clint takes a step back, but he’s too slow; like he can fucking _teleport_ , the man reappears right in front of him, and the blade of his sword flashes down. With a curse, Clint throws himself to the side, and—

On the opposite side of his body from the blade, a line of heat lances down his arm, and Clint stumbles, unprepared. Looks, but the man is just standing there, grinning.

“Didn’t I just say it?” he asks, and takes a step, vanishes. Clint twists, nocking another arrow as he looks for the bastard, but a blade appears, taps him hard on the collarbone with the flat. The feel of it reverberates on his opposite side, and Clint wrenches away, trying to think, trying to figure this out. Inverted World, he said, and what happens on one side is actually happening on the other—

“Don’t strain yourself,” the asshole says, and Clint jerks back, looks up and fires at the man floating upside-down above him in the same motion. There's a crack, like the bolt striking stone, and chips of it spray Clint's skin. Up is down now, apparently, and this is so fucking beyond Clint's paygrade as far as thinking goes. He’s supposed to be the muscle, not deal with absolute bullshit like this.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demands, and takes a passing glance at the window across the street. Dark, and it’s been that way for days now; no one’s living there. Deliberately, Clint turns the opposite direction, imagines the target, lets the arrow go.

The sound of shattering glass is his reward, and he lets out a breath. Inverted. Everything’s backwards. It’s like shooting in a hall of mirrors or something, but—he can work with that.

“Givin’ you a reason to listen to me,” the man says, and the tap of his boot on the rooftop makes Clint twitch, but he doesn’t move to face him. spins in the other direction, bow up, arrow drawn, and fires in a smooth motion.

The arrow drops to the roof, neatly cut in half, and Clint calls bullshit. _No one_ is that fucking fast.

The guy doesn’t seem about to acknowledge the fact that he’s a freak of nature, though; he steps forward, casual and careless, and smirks at Clint. “You’re a fighter,” he says. “You listen to yer instincts, and no matter how well you're reactin’ right now, that’s going to trip you up. Eventually, you're gonna react the way your brain says ya should, and then where’ll ya be?”

“Yeah, well, maybe I can put an arrow in your ass before then,” Clint says. “I'm good at hitting invisible targets.”

There's a moment of silence, and then the man laughs, loud and delighted. “Are you sayin’ my ass is flat?” he asks, and this time his grin is entirely humor. “I've got a great ass, thanks.”

This day can't get any stranger. The sooner Clint accepts that, the sooner he can crawl back into bed in the apartment he’s squatting in, pull the blankets over his head, and pretend none of this ever happened. “Well, you definitely can't pull off a catsuit like the Black Widow,” he retorts.

“We’ll have to compare,” the man says, snickering, and tips his head, looking Clint over again. “Gonna give up yet, asshole?”

“Got a reason I should?” Clint asks, and puts another arrow on the string.

The humor fades out of the blond’s face, and his smile thins. “Yeah,” he says. “’Cause if you kill one person too many, you’re gonna destroy the world.”

Clint laughs, unamused. “Yeah, but you still haven’t told me what you're going to do to keep those bastards from killing. Because from where I'm standing, they're just going to get more powerful, and they’ll do it in blood.”

The silence stretches for a long moment, and then the man blows out a sharp breath. “The only one goin’ on a killing spree is you,” he says quietly. “This isn't your country. This isn't a place where you have any right to come in and play death god. Maybe in America that’s okay, but you're killing people who’ve suffered the same fucking thing you have. People who are shitheads, yeah, but they're _not yours to punish_. So get the fuck off your high horse and report them to the damned police if you're really so fucking worried, you piece of shit.”

The words jar through Clint's chest, and he growls, spins. Three arrows in the air, away from the man even if Clint's brain screams at him for leaving his back open, and he grabs for a grappling hook, has half a second to try to work out how he’s supposed to rappel down a building when everything is backwards, and then mutters, “Screw it,” tosses the line, and jumps.

Below him—above him?—there's a loud, fierce curse, a rush of air. Too late, Clint realizes that the chain attached to the center of his chest is rapidly running out of slack as he falls, and he swears, but it’s too late. With a bone-deep _wrench_ , the chain snaps taut, and Clint's vision goes dark as a vast, terrible roaring fills his ears.

Consciousness gets slippery, after that, and Clint lets it slip through his fingers and tumble away with a flicker of regret.

 

 

“Shit,” Shinji says, disgusted, and dumps the archer back in his body, stuffing him down into it until there's a gasp, a jerk. He rolls over, eyes still closed but body twitching, and Shinji watches narrowly until his breathing evens out. Still unconscious, but almost snapping his Chain of Fate is a good excuse for that.

Blowing out a loud breath, Shinji crouches down next to him, dragging a hand over his hair, and glares at the man’s still face. “Fucking _idiot_ ,” he says out loud, the adrenaline from having to dive to catch the imbecile still making his heart race, and then shoves to his feet and throws himself over the side of the apartment building. Unlike the amazing archer asshole, though, Shinji can _fly_ with enough reiatsu around him, so he’s in no danger of splattering himself across the pavement. Maybe the reaction is spiteful, but at this point, Shinji is willing to roll with it.

Halfway down, he changes trajectory, heading for the crowd that’s gathered around his gigai. There's no sound of an ambulance yet, which Shinji is grateful for; he can only talk himself out of so much trouble, after all, before he needs to default to replacing memories. A quick inspection shows the arrow to his gut has handily been removed, too, and the wound is healing at a steady rate. A bit of healing kidō and Shinji will be fine to cart the asshole on the rooftop away to a place where he can keep trying to beat sense into him in private.

Maybe without Sakanade this time. Clearly, Shinji overestimated the idiot’s nerves, if his reaction to getting dropped into Shinji's shikai was to fight back without pause. Smacking him around the head a few times at least has less potential for unexpected damage by way of gravity and tall buildings.

Coming to a half over his gigai, Shinji squints down at it, assessing. The woman who was the first to respond is putting pressure on the wound, while a boy crouches next to her, talking worried into a cell phone. Despite himself, Shinji feels a flicker of fondness. Humans are dumb, and they can be cruel, but Soul Society as a whole tends to write them off a hell of a lot more often than it should.

Shinji isn't anywhere near as skilled at kaidō as Hachi, or even Kisuke, but he’s decent enough to fix a non-lethal wound on a gigai. Crouching down, he presses his hand over the woman’s, letting the reiatsu wash over the body, and gives it to a count of fifteen. Then, with a breath, he tips forward, falls headlong into the gigai, and opens his eyes.

“ _Shit_ ,” he says, because that _stings_ , and the woman jumps. Her eyes flicker up to meet his, her mouth drops open, and for a second she looks entirely speechless.

Shinji takes advantage of the moment to get an elbow under himself and sit up. He’s soaked, and his catsuit is probably not worth salvaging, though Shinji isn't about to shed any tears over that loss. The coat he can probably scrub out well enough; he’s had practice getting bloodstains out of clothing, and black’s good for hiding that shit anyway.

The motion seems to be enough to startle the woman back to her senses, though. Her mouth closes, firms, and she gets a hand on his shoulder and firmly pushes him back down. “Stay still,” she says. “There's a delay, but paramedics should be here soon.”

Shinji huffs and waves her hand away. “’M fine,” he says, and rolls over, grimacing at the lingering soreness in his shoulder and stomach both. Maybe he should have left the archer swinging from his Chain of Fate for a little while longer, seeing as this is his fault.

“Sir!” The woman looks entirely alarmed as she follows him up. “You got _shot_. With an _arrow_.”

“An’ I'm going to kick that asshole in the head for it,” Shinji mutters, and pulls the scarf she was using to put pressure on his wound away from his stomach. The silk is ruined, and Shinji pulls a face, digging into his pocket and dragging out a handful of money. “Sorry about the scarf, buy yourself another on me,” he says, hands the bloody fabric to the very confused man who’s trying to relay what’s happening to the paramedics, and before either one can react he slips past them both and picks up a jog, pulling his coat closed to hide the wound.

Either he’s moving fast enough that they can't catch him in their shock, or they're smart enough to stay the hell out of something fishy, because neither the man nor the woman tries to follow. Shinji figures that in light of that he can let them keep their memories, so he fishes his communicator out without looking back. The waiting call light is green, and Shinji winces, remembering how abruptly he cut Nemu off. Hitting the button to accept, he puts it to his ear and says, “Too late to get you to call off the cavalry?”

“Captain Hirako.” The thread of relief in Nemu’s voice is touching. Less touching is the way she immediately says, “He’s fine, Captain Kuchiki.”

With Rukia busy in India, there's only one Kuchiki that could be, and Shinji pulls a face. “Do I look like I need to get rescued by snot-nosed toddlers?” he demands. “Come on, Nemu.”

“We cannot afford to lose another captain to stubbornness and stupidity,” Byakuya says, more than a little barbed. “Captain Hirako, have you found the killer?”

“Workin’ on it,” Shinji says, which is more of less true. Gathering reishi under his feet, he kicks off the sidewalk, rising through the air towards the rooftop again. He doesn’t want to risk the asshole waking up, though there's little risk of that; straining the soul takes more out of a person than just straining the body. The bastard is probably going to sleep for at least the rest of the day. “Nemu, can you let Momo know I might be late gettin’ back? This shithead is more stubborn ‘an I thought he’d be. Most of the rotations are plotted, but Mitsuba needs another week in the Fourth, so I was gonna promote Hanako.”

“I’ll pass on the message,” Byakuya says, and Shinji can practically _hear_ the haughty swish of his windflower scarf as he turns to leave. “Lieutenant, alert my recovery squad if anything else happens.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Yes, sir.” There's a moment of silence as Nemu waits for the other captain to leave, and then she asks, “Do you need backup to deal with the killer, Captain?”

“Nah,” Shinji says dismissively, touching down beside the archer’s body. “We still got that safehouse set up in the neighborhood? Think I need somewhere else to make ‘im listen.”

With a clatter of keys picking up in the background, Nemu makes a quiet sound of confirmation. “Yes. It’s twelve blocks south and three west. Would you like me to guide you to it?”

“Yeah, if you’ve got the time.” Shinji collects the dropped bow, testing the weight of the draw, and raises a brow in reluctant admiration at the resistance. That’s a powerful weapon. “Anyone else check in yet?”

“The Kurosaki sisters finished their patrol of Karakura and have returned to the Seireitei,” Nemu reports. “And Captain Unohana returned from Europe unharmed.”

Since it would take a hell of a lot to harm one of the oldest remaining captains, Shinji isn't surprised. It means his own rotation out of Japan is that much closer, though, and he stifles an aggravated sigh, leaning down to haul the archer up. The fireman’s carry isn't overly comfortable, but Shinji doesn’t overly care, either, so it works out. “Good. When ya get off, see if you can drag the girls out to eat with you an’ Momo, unless I'm interrupting date night.”

“Karin and Yuzu seem very self-sufficient,” Nemu says after a moment, but Shinji can hear the question in what she isn't saying.

“Better to keep reminding ‘em that there are people around the Seireitei who care,” Shinji says, and lets a flicker of flash-step carry him five blocks down in an instant. “Kūkaku’s a good influence, but she’s a hell of a lot sometimes. You an’ Momo at least know how to use your indoor voices once in a while.”

“Of course, Captain.” That tone means _I'm going to consider this at length and then act on it in the weirdest way possible_ , but Shinji supposes that for someone raised in the Twelfth with Mayuri and Akon as the biggest influences in her life, Nemu’s probably doing pretty well. “Would you like the safehouse’s street number?”

“Sure.” Shinji listens to her rattle it off, then squints, finding the right building after a few moments. Gliding towards it, he checks the windows until he finds one in a rear hallway that opens, and slips through it, landing lightly on carpet. A quick check of the closest apartment number proves he’s only one story off from where he needs to be, so he finds the stairwell and heads up. “Any word yet which hole we’re gonna be filling next?”

There's a pause, and then Nemu lets out a soft breath. “I was considering drawing lots,” she says, and it’s not a joke. “All current assistance requests have the same priority.”

High priority, she means. Shinji grimaces, ignoring the sidelong look he gets from a young woman just emerging from the elevator as he pushes out into the hall. If the archer’s head whacks a doorframe or two, it’s not Shinji's fault; the guy’s head is just in the way, and there's no helping it.

There's also no helping overtime, not with things so tight. Shinji wavers for half a second, indulging in a pout that only he knows he’s wearing, and then huffs a resigned sigh. “If I get done with this asshole, send my orders on. I’ll skip my leave, and me an’ Momo can deal with the paperwork over video or something.” After all, Momo’s sick enough that she’s stuck in the Seireitei, and having something to do is good for her. Otherwise she wanders around the Fourth, trying to keep people’s spirits up, and while Shinji's not about to discount that, it’s draining on her. Makes her feel useless, and while Shinji can sympathize, he can’t spare the time to deal with it. None of them can.

“Captain Kyoraku will object,” Nemu points out, but he can hear her keyboard, knows she’s already pulling up the files.

Shinji snorts. “When our vaunted Captain-Commander actually sleeps more’n three hours a night, he’s welcome to get as pissy with me as he wants,” he says dismissively, and pauses in front of the last apartment on the left. Squints at the lock for a moment, and then says, “These pants are tight enough that I’m pretty sure Akon didn’t shove any keys in my pockets.”

“The lock is keyed to spiritual pressure,” Nemu tells him, and she doesn’t quite sound exasperated, but it’s definitely very dry. “Your reiatsu should unlock it, Captain. Afterwards it will be keyed to your reiatsu levels until it’s reset.”

Well, that’s certainly simple enough. Shinji traces just a touch of Hollow power through his own, then puts his hand on the knob. It turns easily, and he lets himself into the apartment, squinting against the sunlight. It’s small, with barely enough space for two, but for a safehouse it’s decent enough. Shinji’s spent a lot of time in worse places. He drags the archer over to the bedroom, dumps him on the mattress in a burst of dust, and then retreats to the main room again.

There’s a sense of death nearby, not fresh but lingering, and Shinji hesitates for a long moment and then asks, “Can you watch this place? Tell me if the asshole wakes up?”

“Of course, Captain.” There’s a click, a hiss, and a blue light fills the apartment for a moment before it fades. “His vitals are holding steady. I’ll monitor brain activity and alert you if anything changes. Should I give Lieutenant Hinamori a time to message you?”

Shinji judges how many souls he can feel in the area, how much time it will take him to get to them if he’s liberal with his use of power. “Three hours from now,” he answers. “An’ tell her to get the third seat to coordinate with Love. He’s coming off his downtime, right?”

“Yes, sir.” A thump sounds, followed by a yelp, then a groan, and Shinji raises a brow. A loud thud practically makes him jerk the communicator from his ear, and he blinks.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” Nemu says. “Akon was waking up. Was there anything else?”

Shinji gets the feeling Akon is going to be the most well-rested member of the Gotei 13 after this, if he really did just get sedated again. Snickering, he slides out of his gigai, letting the body collapse onto the dusty couch, and says, “No thanks, sweetheart. An’ don’t be an idiot like him and make someone tranq you before you take a break.”

Very noticeably, Nemu doesn’t respond to that. “I’ll send you your assignment as soon as I can,” she says instead. “Good luck.”

“Little enough a’ that to go around,” Shinji mutters, and cracks open the window enough to slip out into the city. “Thanks, Nemu.”

“Of course, Captain Hirako.”

The communicator chimes softly, and Shinji pulls it away from his ear with a sigh, shoving it into the pocket of his grey coat. Sakanade is still in his hand, and he rubs his thumb over the inlays on her guard, then rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and tells her, “Time to work, yeah?”

Her groan is all disgust and exhaustion, and Shinji fully agrees.

 

 

The fact that Clint wakes up at all is a little bit surprising, because he’s never had a lot of luck as far as passing out in front of enemies goes. Though, granted, he’s survived this long, so maybe his luck isn’t entirely terrible.

Following the trend of not-entirely-terrible luck, he’s not splattered across the pavement below a building or falling upwards endlessly. Instead, he’s back in his body, no trailing chain in sight, sprawled out on a dusty bed. Beyond all possible expectations, Clint’s bow, quiver, and sword are even nearby, left on a table and apparently unharmed.

At this point, Clint’s options boil down to Natasha or one of the other Avengers swooping in for a last-minute rescue, or the blond guy deciding to add kidnapping to his existing charges of being an unmitigated asshole. And, given the fact that this room very definitely doesn’t have Natasha-level security, Clint is going to go with the latter.

Of course, that doesn’t explain the handy weapons, but Clint isn’t about to look a gift bow in the quiver. Staggering out of bed, he grabs the sword, then the bow, does a quick check of both, and touches one of his hearing aides to make sure it’s still in place. Both seem to be working, since he can pick up the murmur of voices from beyond the door—two at least, one familiar and attached to the blond man, the other a girl’s voice, light and soft. Carefully, Clint eases the door open, wary of shifting floorboards, and glances out.

His stalker is seated on the floor in the main room, one leg pulled up, the other sprawled out, with what looks like a collapsible screen propped up on the table in front of him. There’s a young woman on it, probably only a little older than Lila, with her dark hair pulled up in a cloth-covered bun. She looks pale, exhausted, but there’s a stack of papers in front of her that she’s quickly working through, pen flying across the paper with a speed that speaks of automatic motions.

“—just received the reports from the Academy, Shinji,” she’s saying. “Ten students listed the Fifth Division as their choice, but only three are currently set to graduate on time.”

Shinji frowns, tapping his nails against the cup he’s holding. “Shit,” he mutters, and then asks, “Any way we can get a couple of seated officers to volunteer as tutors?  Hell, make it a proposal an’ bring it to Kyoraku. We need as many new bodies as possible, an’ I’m not opposed to havin’ to lead them through to graduation by the hand.”

The girl looks up with a smile. “I was hoping you’d agree, Shinji,” she says. “I already asked around the training ground, and Ito and Iwashi volunteered. Their patrol areas are rural, and they’ve been finishing early more often than not.”

Shinji grunts, rubbing a hand over his face. “Thanks, Momo. Send the idea on to the First and see what Kyoraku thinks. Ten more Shinigami would be a hell of a blessing. Any word on how Karin is doin’? If she doesn’t rank at least lieutenant-level when she’s done, I’m callin’ fucking bullshit.”

“Captain,” Momo reprimands, but flips through a few of the forms in front of her. “One of the teachers says her control is abysmal, but the others think she’s almost ready to pick a division.”

Shinji snickers. “Yeah, well, Ichigo’s level of control woulda made them all faint in horror, so I’ll take it. Wherever she ends up’ll be grateful enough to have her blasting Hollows that I doubt they’ll give a damn about the backlash. She said anything to you about where she’s considering?”

Momo hesitates, like she’s considering whether to answer, and then says, “We haven’t discussed it often, but…I think she liked the idea of the Tenth.”

The curve of Shinji’s mouth is ruefully amused. “Sentimental, huh?” he asks, and sighs. “An’ Yuzu?”

Momo smiles, quick and small as she looks up. “She wanted me to remind you to eat,” she says, “and drink something besides coffee. She’s sad you’re not coming back before your rotation, but she said she’ll have a big dinner waiting when you get home.”

Just for a moment, Shinji looks like he’s going to fold in on himself right there, slump down and stay in that position until the sun rises. But after a long moment, he squares his shoulders, and says, “Tell her I said to pay attention to her classes, not to fretting over everyone an’ their mother. She should make lieutenant easy, just like Karin.”

“I think Hisagi has been mentoring her,” Momo offers with a smile. “He’s fond of her, and he told me she’d be a good fit for the Ninth.”

“Kid’s got a good eye,” Shinji says, waving a hand. “Better ‘n Kensei’s, that’s for sure. Take a break, Momo. I think that’s everything. If something comes up—”

“I’ll call,” Momo promises, then hesitates again. Opens her mouth, closes it, and finally says, “Shinji, if I can take a shift for you—”

“You’re doin’ more than you should already,” Shinji says, perfectly, carefully dismissive. Clint recognizes the tone; Coulson used to use it all the time when he didn’t want Clint and Natasha getting in over their heads after an injury. “You’re looking better, too. ‘S good.”

Momo ducks her head, but she’s smiling a little. “I’ve stopped visiting Toshiro’s quarters,” she says, like a confession. “If he knew I’d been going there every day, I think he’d yell at me to do my job and stop dwelling on the past.”

Shinji laughs. “Yeah, he was a little hardass,” he agrees, ignoring Momo’s squawk of protest. “Later, Momo. Don’t let Love pick on you.”

“Captain Aikawa is fine. You’re the only one who picks on me, Shinji,” Momo tells him primly, and the screen goes black. In the silence, Shinji drags a hand through his hair with a loud sigh, then scrubs at his eyes.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and Clint never saw Fury show exhaustion, but he caught a glimpse of Coulson looking like this a time or two. It’s not quite enough to make up for trapping Clint in a funhouse world, but—maybe he’s not quite as angry as he could be right now.

Pushing open the door, Clint props his shoulder against the frame, folding his arms over his chest, and asks, “Isn’t it kind of ballsy to leave me all of my weapons? Most people are smarter than that.”

Without looking up, Shinji makes a rude sound. “If you can kill me with human weapons, I’m havin’ a _really_ off day,” he says, and shifts, crossing his legs under himself and sitting up a little straighter. The grin he levels at Clint is vaguely ghoulish. “’Sides, you didn’t do too hot last time.”

“I wasn’t exactly trying to kill you,” Clint retorts, but he pushes away from the doorframe, comes into the main room. Nothing about Shinji’s body language right now says that he’s a threat, and Clint can see at least three potential exits, which puts him slightly more at ease. “So? Got a name? Or should I just keep calling you my stalker?”

That gets him a raised middle finger without pause. “Fuck off, shithead. Hirako Shinji, Captain of the Fifth Division of the 13 Court-Guard Squads, a section of Soul Society.”

He mentioned Soul Society before, and Clint remembers the context well enough to make assumptions. “That’d be the afterlife?” he asks dryly, raising a brow.

“Japanese afterlife, specifically, if we’re talkin’ about the Gotei 13,” Shinji corrects lazily. “Soul Society is where everyone goes when they kick the bucket, but where you are plays a part in who gets tapped to snag your soul.”

The whole notion is vaguely unsettling, at least in part because Clint has never seriously thought about what comes after death. Considered it once or twice in passing, had more near-death experiences than he’d care to count, but—this is a direct answer about what comes next, and Clint isn’t sure he appreciates it.

“Clint Barton,” he says instead of dwelling on it. “That kid—”

Shinji snickers, leaning back to give him an amused glance. “That _kid_ is almost eighty years old,” he says.

Clint’s brain kind of stalls out. He opens his mouth, cant find a single damn thing to say, and closes it again. Pauses, trying to work it out, and then says, “If she bottled her skincare routine, she’d be set for _life_.”

“She’s dead,” Shinji says dryly. “Souls age slower, an’ how old they look is never the same as how old they _are_.”

Clint pauses, not quite sure what to do with that, either. Somehow, he hadn’t quite connected _Shinigami_ and _dead_ , and thinking of that little girl and Shinji both as people who died—

“You were human?” Clint asks. “Once, I mean. Is there a recruitment process? Do you have to be special or something? If you meet a certain weirdness factor you can go out and terrorize souls after you kick it?”

The eye-roll that gets him is truly impressive. “The only person terrorizing souls is you,” Shinji retorts. “But yeah, I was human. Can't tell you more ‘n that—I don’t remember shit.”

Makes sense. Dying is probably traumatic enough to wipe a few memories. Clint rubs a hand over his face, trying not to think of his family fading into ash, and drags his thoughts away with a will. “Are you really supposed to be telling me this? Isn't death supposed to be the last great mystery?”

“Walk out that door an’ tell the first person you meet that you know what happens after death,” Shinji drawls. “I’ll wait.”

Yeah, Clint can just imagine the reaction that will get him. He pulls a face at Shinji, who snickers and takes a swallow of his tea. “’Sides,” he says lazily. “I figure you figurin’ out that it’s a bad idea to kill people right now’ll have more impact if ya know I'm in the business. So I'm not gonna hide anythin’.”

Something cold and sour turns in Clint's chest, but he makes himself breathe through it. Crosses the room, dropping down on the narrow couch, and folds his arms over his chest, giving Shinji a challenging look. “Yeah? Want to elaborate?”

“I already _told_ you,” Shinji says, exasperated. He sets his tea aside, then lifts his hands, cupped with his palms upwards. “That asshole wiped out half a’ Soul Society with his shit when he went after the Living World, so we’re down most of our force. But people in the Living World haven’t stopped dying, yeah? Puts us at a permanent imbalance. Tip that balance too much…” He tips his cupped palms, like he’s pouring water between them. “Life an’ death are like…shit. Matter an’ antimatter, I guess.”

“Really?” Clint gives him a look. “If we’re starting this conversation off talking about _antimatter_ , I’d like to take this opportunity to tell you that I shoot things with arrows and hit people with pointy metal objects for a living. I'm not a science guy.”

The look Shinji gives him is something close to surprised, though Clint can't quite pin down why; pretty much everyone takes him at face value, and what he said is true enough. But Shinji smirks faintly, like he knows something Clint doesn’t, and waves a dismissive hand.

“’S not like it matters what the two sides are,” he says. “Could be milk and coffee, or—pizza and ramen, or some shit.”

“Moonshine and cognac?” Clint proposes, straight-faced, but it makes Shinji laugh.

“Nah,” he says. “That jus’ sounds like a recipe for a good time. This’s more like the pieces are causin’ an apocalypse, an’ you can't separate the things afterwards.”

The matter and antimatter analogy sounds appropriately chilling, given that. Clint rubs a callused finger against the new tattoo curling up his arm, trying to imagine it but not able to. Normal, probably; there _shouldn’t_ be a frame of reference for life and death spilling into one another.

There's still a deep-seated thread of irritation in his chest, though, something sharp and dark, that drives him to say, “But—”

Shinji makes a loud, rude sound. “Shut the hell up,” he tells Clint. When Clint glares at him, he looks back, unimpressed, and says, “Yer just gonna tell me the assholes you don’t kill will end up killing more people, yeah? _Bullshit_ , asshole. Report ‘am to the police. Call in the fucking army, if you think that’ll go better. Cut off fingers, if you really think they won’ stop without some incentive. But _don’t fucking kill them._ ”

The fury is a living thing, coiled around Clint's lungs. “They don’t _deserve_ to live,” he snarls, shoving himself to his feet. “Why the fuck should they be here, alive, when _good people_ are fucking dust?”

There's a long, long moment of heavy silence. Shinji hasn’t moved; he’s staring up at Clint from the ground, mouth curled, and isn't even trying to touch the sheathed sword lying next to him.

“Ah,” he says, soft, like it’s a revelation. “So it’s revenge on them for bein’ alive when your people aren’t.”

Fuck. Clint takes a ragged breath, hands curled tight into fists, and then stalks away, over to the window. He takes half a second to contemplate opening it, jumping out and rappelling down, but some edge of _something_ keeps him where he is. Guilt, maybe, or just exhaustion. “If you frame it like that, it just sounds like I'm a serial killer,” he says without humor.

In the reflection on the window, he can see Shinji pick up his tea again. “Aren’t you?” he asks lazily. “Killin’ bad people, even if it’s fer the right reasons, is still killing ‘em. None of these bastards I've sent on when you're done with ‘em have gone to Hell, so I'm guessin’ they're not the worst people in the world. Bad, maybe, but not entirely.”

Once, a very, very long time ago, very far from here, Clint told Natasha almost the same thing. _No one is entirely bad. I don’t think you're the first exception._ And—it hurts, just a little. He closes his eyes, rests his forehead against the cold glass, and tries not to think about anything for a long moment.

There's a clink of porcelain on glass, a rustle of cloth, a step. Clint can feel the weight of a body coming to lean on the wall beside him, though he doesn’t glance over.

“This isn’t about them,” Shinji says again. “You kill too many, one soul over the limit, an’ lots of good people die. Right now, yer the one with your finger on the trigger. I'm askin’ you to let go, at least of the killin’ part. I won't keep asking forever.”

He’d said that, too. One death weighed against all the people Clint could kill, and it’s maddening to think about those assholes walking free, destroying lives, running the world like their own criminal underworld. There aren’t enough police, and they can't be everywhere; there's every chance that if Clint reports the people he finds, nothing will happen. But—

Matter and antimatter, he thinks, and lets his eyes slide open. He still can't quite picture what would happen if the Living World and Soul Society crashed into one another, but it’s probably not pretty.

“So what would happen, exactly?” he asks.

Shinji doesn’t have to ask what he means. “Exactly? No one knows. But the barrier’s like a cell wall, lettin’ stuff through, but both sides need an equal amount of souls. Put more on one side an’ that cell wall breaks, floods one side into the other. The dead end up in the Living World, an’ the living end up in Soul Society, an’ everything around them breaks ‘cause it’s _not supposed to be that way_.”

Vague enough to be particularly terrifying, Clint thinks wryly, and lifts his head. Shinji is watching him, eyes narrow and expression considering, and Clint raises one hand, halfway to a surrender. “If I give them a concussion, that’s fair game, right?” he asks.

The serious expression vanishes, and Shinji laughs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “Long as you keep it mild,” he agrees. “Get a paintball gun or somethin’.”

That would be a nice statement, Clint reflects, and smiles a little bitterly. Rubs a hand over his face, takes another breath, and says, “Sharpie on their foreheads would work, too. _I'm a criminal asshole who cries during romcoms_. I think I can spell all that.”

Shinji snickers. “Some romcoms are _masterpieces_ ,” he says, though it’s halfhearted.

Clint gives him a sideways look, but it’s hard not to smile. Natasha likes them, too, though she’d never admit to it.

Which, of course, reminds him that Natasha's been looking for him for two years now, and probably won't take kindly to him having disappeared and started a murder spree. With a grimace, Clint rubs at his forehead, and says, “Shit. Maybe I should let you kill me after all.”


	5. Chapter 5

“Had your chance at that, but ya blew it,” Shinji tells him without sympathy. “Someone’s waitin’ for you?”

“ _Waiting_ implies that she’s doing it patiently, and won't strangle me with her thighs when I turn up,” Clint mutters.

“Sounds like a pretty good way to go,” Shinji says, grinning, and pushes away from the wall, making his way towards the tiny kitchen area. “How’re ya feeling? Jumpin’ off a building as a soul is pretty fucking stupid, but I think I got ya before you actually died.”

“Well, _someone_ turned the world upside down and backwards, so excuse me for panicking,” Clint retorts, and follows him, mostly out of curiosity. “What even was that?”

Shinji hooks a thumb over his shoulder, at where his sword is lying by the table. “Zanpakutō,” he says, and Clint pauses, trying to break down the unfamiliar word. “’S a Shinigami's weapon. Part of our souls, so they’ve got power in ‘em. Sakanade’s does that, and a bit extra.”

“That Inverted World bullshit is _already_ extra,” Clint mutters, maybe a little petulantly. “I've been in circuses that make more sense.”

Shinji's sound of amusement is both unappreciated and more than a little mocking. “Not _supposed_ to make sense to anyone but me,” he says. “That’s the point, yeah? Can't kick ass if everyone can see through my secrets.”

Clint supposes that’s reasonable enough. “Are there aftereffects to getting booted out of my body that I should worry about?” he asks. “Side effects, possible seizures, an allergy to mirrors and garlic?”

“Yer not gonna sparkle in the sunlight, if that’s what you're asking.” Shinji looks him over for a moment, then leans back against the counter and tips his head, the odd, asymmetrical slant of his bangs shifting the shadows on his face in strange ways. “Might be able to see spirits now,” he says thoughtfully. “A normal captain dumpin’ reiatsu on you for that long would be bad enough, but mine’s somethin’ meaner. Coulda opened up a couple extra senses.”

Clint pauses, torn. On the one hand, seeing _ghosts_. On the other, he can think of a hell of a lot worse that could have happened. “How about brain damage?” he asks. “I _know_ my body wasn’t breathing while you were grandstanding at me.”

“’S not grandstanding when I can back it up,” Shinji retorts. “An’ how could you even tell with that brain you’ve got?” When Clint makes a face at him, he snickers, but says, “You didn’t break the Chain of Fate, so yer body wouldn’t have been effected. Hell if I know how it works, but it does.”

Clint isn't about to argue against anything that keeps him from having starved his brain of oxygen, so he nods, accepting that. Pauses for a moment, then realizes that he doesn’t have a single excuse for avoiding Natasha now, and pulls a face. It would be a hell of a lot easier to go back to hunting down petty criminals, but he absolutely believes that Shinji would kill him for it. not to mention that he doesn’t _actually_ want to end the world by killing a few people too many.

“Shit,” he sighs, and Shinji snorts, settling the kettle full of water on the stove.

“I’ll drink to that,” he agrees. “And to another month on the job without leave.”

Those sound like SHIELD hours, and Clint winces in sympathy. “The _worst_ ,” he agrees, and then glances back towards the windows, out at the city around them. Everything feels…dark, like dusk settling in early, and it sours his mood, the regret in his stomach turning sharper, angrier.

“Ya picked an odd place to go on a killin’ spree,” Shinji says, and when Clint looks back it’s to find the man watching him again, intent in a way that feels almost inhuman. Clint’s seen that look on big cats when a small animal gets too close to their cage. Ultron wore it too, at least as much as a robot could. “Far from home right now, aren’t ya?”

It takes a second to gather his wits enough to answer; Clint can’t fight the sudden, stark reminder that Shinji is dead. He’s talking to a dead man with a soul shaped like a sword, who’s been sending all of Clint’s victims on to the afterlife. Fancy titles aside, Shinji is a ghost, too. He’s _dead_.

Cooper would go nuts over this story, Clint thinks, and it’s a raw, bleeding ache in his chest. He always loved the idea of ghosts.

“I spent some time in the States,” he says, and meets Shinji’s gaze as squarely as he can. “Then I caught a lead about the gang I was after selling weapons abroad, so I followed the trail. Ended up here, so I just…stayed for a while. I was planning to move on once I stopped finding connections.”

Shinji snorts, tapping his fingers against the counter in a strange, slightly off-beat pattern; if there’s a rhythm to it, Clint can’t pick it out. “Heading back now?” he asks.

“I have to be doing _something_ ,” Clint says, and it’s the barest sort of truth, pared away to the very heart of it. “If I’m not hunting down assholes, I need—something. Anything. There’s probably shit I can help with back home.”

“Always is,” Shinji says wryly, and when a chime sounds from the living room he grimaces, rubbing at the back of his neck.

Clint’s seen that sort of face a hundred times over the years, and with a touch of amused sympathy he asks, “Marching orders?”

“Marchin’ orders,” Shinji agrees wearily. “Momo musta told the Twelfth that I got done beatin’ you over the head with logic.”

“With threats,” Clint corrects, because he’s not about to let that stand. He stays where he is as Shinji heads past him, scooping the thing off the table and squinting at the screen. Whatever’s written there makes his mouth turn down, his lip curl in an expression of clear disgust, and Clint raises a brow. “That bad?” he asks.

Shinji dumps the device back on the table with a scowl. “The senkaimon trip’s goin’ to be hell,” he says. “I’ve got New York state this time. Guess it’s better ‘n all of Siberia, like I got last time.”

Clint stares at him for a moment, bewildered. “You alone?” he asks, and when Shinji nods he tries to wrap his head around that math. “Even if half the population is gone, in New York City _alone_ there are—”

Waving a hand, Shinji clomps back past him just as the tea kettle starts to whistle. “There’s a local in the city,” he says. “Most a’ these jobs are cleanup, at this point. I’m just workin’ my way through the backlog of souls and Hollows that’re hanging around. Local talent’ll worry about the new deaths, at least in the city.”

Two years since Thanos and they’re still working on cleanup. It itches at Clint, makes fury and guilt in equal measure turn in his chest, and he looks away. But—he’s going to have to face those kinds of thoughts. The Avengers compound is in New York, too. Upstate, even.

“Well,” he says, a little roughly. “I’m headed that way, too. If you want to skip using that, uh—”

“Senkaimon,” Shinji supplies for him, amused. He brandishes the kettle at Clint in question, and when Clint raises a brow but nods, he pulls a second cup down from the shelf and adds a teabag. “A passage between Soul Society and the Living World. But the longer the physical distance, the longer you have to spend travling, an’ souls aren’t meant to be trapped in between. Even if we’re dead. Feels like gettin’ squished through a garbage chute if you’re jumpin’ over a couple hundred kilometers.”

Clint snorts. “A Quinjet will definitely be easier,” he says, and doesn’t mention there’s always the possibility that Natasha will be petty enough to make him fly commercial. She’s been looking for him, he knows; hopefully she’ll be glad enough that he’s coming back that she won’t immediately resort to revenge.

Going off the grid had seemed like the only thing to do at the time. The other Avengers had been reeling in the wake of Thanos’s death, their failed attempt at a final play, and Clint hadn’t been able to stomach the thought of walking up to them, looking them in the eye when he hadn’t come to help. One more body was nothing special, might not have changed anything, but—

Clint didn’t even _try_.

Something hot bumps his hand, and he grabs for it automatically, only to find it’s a cup. Blinking, Clint looks first at the pale tea, then up at Shinji, who’s still watching him with sharp eyes. there's a curl to one corner of his mouth that Clint takes for amusement at first, but it’s not. It’s bitter, sympathetic, and as he pulls back he turns away, hiding his face, and waves a hand over his shoulder.

“Settle yer nerves with that,” he says. “An’ let me know ‘bout that transport. Could save the Science Division some time if they don’ have to pull extra people for an intercontinental Senkaimon.”

“Sure,” Clint says, a little rough, but before he can add anything else Shinji goes still. His head lifts, tilts, and a distant, calculating look flashes over his features for just an instant. It’s enough to put the hair on Clint's neck up, and he takes a step back, one hand reaching for a knife that’s still back in the bedroom.

“Shinji?” he demands.

Shinji flaps an irritated hand at him and puts his own tea back on the counter. “Someone just died,” he says. “I better take care of it ‘fore they meet a Hollow or some shit.”

“You can _feel_ that?” Clint asks, bewildered, and follows Shinji towards the living room. “Wait, what’s a Hollow?”

But Shinji isn’t listening. He grabs his sword off the table, and collapses.

Clint lunges on instinct, dropping his tea and catching his bony body before it hits the ground, but in the half-instant between panic and action, he glances up, then stops short.

Just like before, Shinji is out of his body, standing in the middle of the room with his sheathed sword in hand and what looks like a cell phone. He’s back in the grey coat and bright shirt, tie crooked, and his hair whirls in an unfelt wind as he frowns.

“Shinji?” Clint asks, bewildered.

Shinji's gaze flickers to him for half a second, a brow arching. “Guess you can see spirits now,” he says, grinning, and touches two fingers to his forehead in the laziest excuse for a salute Clint has ever seen. “Be back in a bit. Don’t go jumpin’ off any more buildings till I'm around to catch you, asshole.”

There’s a flicker, too fast to track, and he’s suddenly, completely gone.

Clint, still clutching Shinji's body, stays where he is for a long moment, trying to fight the ghost that’s right at the edges of his mind, cocky grin and bleached-blond hair and _what, you didn’t see that coming?_ But Pietro is gone, gave his life for Clint and a kid despite everything, and sometimes Clint can't breathe past the weight of his ghost.

A less literal one than this, granted.

With a groan, Clint heaves Shinji up, dumps him on the couch. “You're an asshole,” he tells him, but the body looks for all the world like just that, a body, a corpse, and it doesn’t respond. It isn't even breathing. Clint gives it a grimace, and decides that a retreat to the kitchen is in order. There's tea soaking into the tatami, but Clint can't find any towels and he isn't about to sacrifice his shirt to mop it up, so he leaves it where it is and settles back against the fridge, just close enough to keep an eye on the body but where he doesn’t have to look at it constantly. Instead, he waffles for a few long minutes, trying to think of openers, and finally pulls out his cell phone. It’s a burner, no numbers stored, but Clint hardly needs them. All his most important contacts are memorized.

It takes another handful of minutes to actually type the message out, careful and slow, debating every word before he commits it to text, but he finally settles on something short. Natasha won't mind.

_What are the chances my old room is still free?_

He’s halfway through Shinji's tea—since Shinji himself is out and working, Clint spilled his because of Shinji, and it seems like a shame to waste it—when the reply comes in, a quiet chime that somehow feels far more menacing than it should. Taking a careful breath, Clint picks up the phone, and can't help a tired smile at the words on the screen.

_We gave it to the blue android, but you can have the couch._

Clint closes his eyes, rubbing a hand over his face. He’s not sure if the feeling bubbling in his chest is relief or regret, but the outcome is probably about the same. _That couch is terrible, do you really hate me that much?_ Pauses for a long moment, and then adds, _I'm in Japan. Tokyo._

 _You’ll be flying coach back, right?_ Natasha's reply is almost instantaneous, but it makes Clint roll his eyes a little. Natasha likes to think she’s unpredictable, and maybe to most people she is. But Clint _knows_ her.

 _Coach AND the couch?_ he answers. _Now you’re just being cruel._

The long pause is Natasha's this time, stretches out while Clint finishes off the tea and puts the kettle on to make more because he’s thoughtful like that. Finally, when the phone chimes, Natasha's message is only four words, but still makes Clint close his eyes, breath sliding out on a sigh.

_I missed you, Clint._

Natasha knows how to go for the throat, Clint thinks a little wryly. Even when she’s being sincere. Maybe _especially_ when she’s being sincere. And—the guilt is a sharp thing, overwhelming the relief right now. Clint leans back against the fridge, slides down it to sit on the floor, and tries to come up with a response that can put at least some of his feelings into words.

 _Sorry_ , he finally manages, but hesitates before sending it. Just one word doesn’t seem like enough. He adds, _I missed you too_ but then immediately deletes it, and finally settles on just hitting send. Remembers, belatedly, that he volunteered the Quinjet for some more basic transport, and mutters a curse. SHIELD might be mostly gone at this point, but he knows Natasha's levels of paranoia. If he shows up with an unannounced visitor, she won't take it well.

 _Got a tagalong with me_ , he tells her. _There room?_

Another immediate response. _Adopted or recruited?_

Clint makes a face at the phone screen, and knows that Natasha will know his response even if she can't see his face. _Neither, and that’s slander._

 _Experience_. Somewhere on the other side of the line, Natasha is smiling. _I’ll set up a room._

_So he gets a room but I get the couch? Nice._

_It wouldn’t be polite to make him sleep in the living room._

Clint snorts, tipping his head back against the fridge, and closes his eyes again. He’s tired. He has been for two years now, he thinks.

Maybe that’s what drives him to write, _They’re gone, Nat._

This time, the silence stretches out longer and longer. At last the chime comes, and the response is brief but exactly what he needs to hear.

_Come home, Clint._

 

 

When Shinji climbs back in through the window, Clint's bow and quiver are leaning by the door, and he’s sitting on the couch next to the crumpled gigai, cleaning his sword with careful, familiar motions. As Shinji settles on the floor, he glances up, definitely able to see spirits now, and raises a brow.

“You know, if anyone dropped by to borrow a cup of sugar, I’d have a really hard time explaining why I'm sitting here with a corpse,” he says dryly, but sets the oil and cloth aside and sheaths his sword.

“’S not a corpse,” Shinji retorts, ducking forward and into the body. When he sits up, Clint is watching him narrowly, more assessing than anything. Shinji twists his neck, working out the kinks, and gives Clint a grin that’s just touched with teeth. “False body built by a scientist, so that Shinigami can interact with the Living World. We call it a gigai.”

Clint snorts, expression shifting into amusement. “I guess this is my crash course on all things dead,” he says. “If you're looking to recruit me, I want you to know I already have a job.”

“Like hell,” Shinji says, unimpressed. “Takes a couple decades to work yer way from soul to Shinigami, an’ that’s under the best circumstances. Only one exception I know of, an’ you're not gonna rival him anytime soon.”

“Decades,” Clint repeats, raising a brow, then pauses and grimaces. “Right. Like that teenage girl being eighty. Different learning curve.”

“Somethin’ like that,” Shinji agrees, and pushes to his feet. He takes another glance at the waiting weapons and asks, “You got that ride, then?”

Clint nods, and he doesn’t exactly look eager to be heading out, but then, Shinji supposes he wouldn’t. “It’ll be landing at the airport in about an hour. Someone’s picking us up on their way back from Siberia.”

Shinji pulls a face. “’Least it’s not going _to_ Siberia,” he says. “Being there for a month was enough. I'm from _Osaka_. ‘S not my speed.”

The snicker from Clint is entirely unappreciated. “Let me guess, theater kid and actor hopeful?” he asks, and looks Shinji over with a raised brow. “I'm not seeing it. you look more like the hipster type.”

Shinji can't help it; he barks out a laugh, then clicks his tongue ring against his teeth as he shakes his head. “No Westerner had ever even _looked_ at Japan when I died,” he tells Clint. “I know that much.” He’s never been particularly interested in figuring out anything else about his human life; those memories are gone, and he’s got a few hundred years of other memories to make up for their loss. Not all good, but—it’s not like all of them are bad. Even after they fled Soul Society, there were a few highlights to being in the Living World.

Clint stares at him for a long moment, frozen, and then his face screws up in a truly amusing expression. “Damn it,” he says. “ _How_?”

The urge to laugh at him isn't one that Shinji bothers holding back on. Instead of answering, though, he pushes to his feet, takes a look around the apartment to check for anything he put down, and then jerks his head at Clint. “Come on,” he says. “It’ll take us at leas’ an hour to get to the airport if we take the train.”

Looking bemused, Clint follows him up, sliding his sword into the sheath across his back. “You want us to take the train,” he repeats, looking down at his own armor, then over Shinji's bloodstained catsuit. “Can't you just—” He waves a hand, which Shinji assumes is meant to represent shunpo.

Unimpressed, Shinji gives him a look. “I told you,” he says. “Exposin’ you to too much of my reiatsu’s not a good idea. It’s _mean_. It’ll eat you up an’ spit you out, an’ I'm not going to all the trouble of keepin’ you alive after your killing spree just to have to cut you down when ya turn into a monster ‘cause I wouldn’t take the train.”

With a roll of his eyes, Clint slings his bow and quiver over his back. “I can't tell if you mean that or are just exaggerating, and I don’t think I want to know. Come on, then.”

“I'm bein’ absolutely serious,” Shinji tells him, though that’s a slight exaggeration. Still, reiatsu exposure builds up, and if Clint's been dunked in enough of it, the next time someone activates a shikai around him might tip him over the edge and break his Chain of Fate. Or, worse, it will make him a target for Hollows, and even if he’s a fighter, he can't prepare for everything.

Clint waves a hand, dismissing that as he heads towards the elevator, and Shinji scowls at his back, but tucks his tablet into his pocket and pulls out his communicator.

It’s probably a bad sign regarding the Twelfth’s expectations of his mission that a voice answers immediately when he hits the button.

“Captain Hirako?” a woman’s voice asks, wholly concerned. “Do you need assistance, sir?”

Shinji rolls his eyes. “Kuna. Just need a reset on the locks for the safehouse, that’s all. An’ can you let Nemu know I'm headed for my posting? Got a ride, so I won’ need a Senkaimon.”

“Sir?” The worry hasn’t faded from Kuna’s tone, but from behind Shinji the door of the apartment gives a sharp beep and then clicks. When Shinji glances back, there's no trace of his reiatsu remaining.

“Found that asshole with the sword,” Shinji tells her, and grins at Clint's dirty look as he joins him in the elevator. “He’s givin’ up and headin’ home, and offered me a lift.”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea, Captain?” Kuna asks doubtfully, and Shinji can hear the click of the chains in her hair as she turns. “We can have the Senkaimon prepared by tomorrow.”

“No need.” Shinji waits for the elevator to start moving, then adds, “Whoever’s got this area next, let ‘em know I cleaned up most of the district, but they should keep an eye on the southern end. ‘S gettin’ worse down there.”

“I’ll make a note, sir,” Kuna says dutifully, and keys click. “It looks like it will be Shirogane Mihane. She should be reporting in within the day, Captain.”

Shinji remembers her, if only vaguely. Sixth Division, he thinks. A seated officer, too. Seventh Seat? No, Ninth. If she’s one of Byakuya’s, at the very least she’s going to be steady. “Good,” he says. “I’ll check in again when I'm in New York. Make Nemu get some rest, yeah?”

There’s a smile in Kuna’s voice when she says, “Of course, sir. Akon already has a plan. We’ll see to it.”

Shinji snickers. “I bet he does,” he says. “Later, Kuna.”

“Good luck, Captain Hirako. Be careful.” The line clicks over to silence, and Shinji stows it, then follows Clint out through the lobby and onto the street.

“Ready to go?” Clint asks, giving him a careful once-over.

Shinji pulls his coat closed, hiding the puncture and the bloodstains from the arrow. Better not to alarm the humans, after all. “Yeah,” he says, and tips his head. “Station’s that way.”

“At least we don’t have to worry about rush hour,” Clint says, bitterly amused, and Shinji breathes out a wry laugh before he can help himself.

“Traffic’s definitely down,” he agrees, tries not to let it come off as grim. But if they can't joke, there’s nothing to be said at all, and Shinji doesn’t think he could live with nothing but silence. “So who’s pickin’ us up?”

Clint pauses, then frowns. “Natasha didn’t say,” he admits after a moment. “Guess we’ll find out in an hour.”

Shinji's always hated surprises, but he falls into step as they head for the train station, willing to put up with it just this once.


	6. Chapter 6

Whatever kind of spy agency SHIELD is, they’re not hiding what they are all that well. A few flashes of Shinji’s very fake badge gets both him and Clint—as well as all their weapons—through security at the airport, and no one even tries to raise a fuss. Shinji is mildly suspicious about that, because he _definitely_ doesn’t like the implications about SHIELD’s level of power, but he doesn’t let it show. Follows Clint instead, two steps to the side and one behind, and keeps a wary eye on their surroundings.

There are a lot of Hollows here. They gravitate towards the number of people who pass through the airport, linger where living humans do, and Shinji can feel the thinness of the barrier between the Living World and Hueco Mundo, worn down from so many crossings. He’ll have to remind Shirogane to do some work here, he thinks, or make sure they send a higher seat just for this. No matter how thin Soul Society is stretched, it’s a bad idea to leave so many Hollows wandering around right under their noses.

Once, Shinji probably would have delayed, stayed to fix the problem himself, but two years of bare-bones prioritizing has done more than all the three hundred years before it as far as clinging to priorities goes, and Shinji grits his teeth, fixes his gaze straight ahead, and keeps moving.

“You okay there?” Clint asks, side-eyeing him in a way that says he wouldn’t be surprised if Shinji spontaneously imploded. “You look a little tense.”

Shinji grins at him, flashing teeth. In his soul, Sakanade is pacing, lion paws wearing a track in the sand, tail lashing, skeletal wings half-spread like a bird of prey warning off competitors. Her mouth is set in a permanent snarl, fangs bared, and the last few black feathers clinging to her tattered wings glitter like blue-black blades in the burning sunlight. She doesn’t take well to other Hollows invading her territory, and at this point, after so many years on the run, anywhere Shinji lingers might as well be hers. It’s an adjustment that’s kept both of them sane.

“Lots of misery here,” he says, tucking his hands into the pockets of his coat so he’s not tempted to draw Sakanade from his soul. She’d appreciate it, but any Hollows close enough to sense it would take it as a challenge, and Shinji doesn’t have time to slaughter all of them. “Builds, yeah? Draws shit in that feeds on that kind of emotion. An’ that shit is exactly the kind of thing I want to get rid of.”

Clint stares at him for a very long moment, expression conflicted, and then lets out a sigh that’s almost a groan and looks away. “Whoever called _Wanda_ weird should have met you,” he mutters, then jerks his head towards a heavy door leading out of the terminal. “Over there. Your badge should open it.”

His badge has opened pretty much everything so far. Shinji is definitely going to recommend that Akon use the same sort of identity for other Shinigami in the future, seeing how it’s been so useful. Maybe after a bit more research, though; any place this powerful likely won’t take kindly to Shinigami impersonating its agents.

For now, at least, confidence is all Shinji needs to sell the act, and he’s had plenty of experience passing unnoticed—or at least unhindered—in the Living World. He doesn’t pause in front of the door, just swipes his badge in the scanner like he’s done it a thousand times before and pushes the door open, holding it just long enough for Clint to push through. Outside, bright lights illuminate the guts of the airport, casting heavy shadows across the runways that fan out around the terminal. Though there are a handful of commercial planes parked to their left, all the closest ones bear markings that Shinji is vaguely convinced are diplomatic markers, and beyond them—

“Huh,” Clint says, sounding a little surprised. “Stark’s remodeled.”

Shinji eyes the low-slung, vaguely plane-shaped craft with a healthy dose of wariness. That’s definitely not the private jet he was expecting, or if it is, it’s the property of someone with a penchant for experimental military planes.

“Yeah?” he asks, and curls his fingers into nothingness, touching the edge of Sakanade’s hilt where she waits, pacing restlessly, in his soul. Drawing a zanpakuto while in a gigai takes a while to get the hang of, and most Shinigami probably couldn’t manage it, but at one point Shinji’s life depended on the speed with which he could draw his sword. He’s got the knack down.

“Looks more streamlined than the old version,” is Clint’s explanation, and he heads for the Quinjet like there’s nothing else it could possibly be. “He never stops tinkering. It’s a good thing for us, I guess, but it means we’ve gone through six versions in the last five years.”

Shinji doesn’t point out the fact that there’s no solid way for Clint to know whether there have been more while he’s been running around playing vigilante. Instead, he snorts, curls his hand just a bit tighter in his pocket and lets Sakanade’s weight half-form, and says, “I knew a guy like that. Fucking insane, but smartest guy I’ve ever wanted to meet.”

That makes Clint snicker. “Yeah, well, that’s a pretty good description of Tony. If there’s a smarter guy, I don’t think I’d want to meet him. One’s plenty.”

Shinji wonders a little absently what he’d make of Kisuke. After everything he did for the Vizards, Shinji’s grateful, but—yeah. One is definitely enough.

“We gonna get shot if we try to walk aboard?” he asks, and in the same moment, as if in answer, the back part of the plane splits horizontally, the bottom lowering like it’s a ramp. There’s a pneumatic hiss as it settles, and then the interior lights come on, showing a mostly-bare hold that gleams like too much chrome.

“Maybe,” Clint says, but he sounds entirely cheerful about it. Stepping around Shinji, he heads up the ramp with an air of familiarity, and calls into the body of the plane in English, “If I give you five stars on Uber, will you give me a discount?”

“You’ll be lucky if I don’t shoot you and toss your body in the harbor,” a pissy voice calls back, and Shinji casts a narrow look up at the cockpit, just as the chair turns. Instead of the human Shinji was expecting, there’s a raccoon sitting there, wearing coveralls, with a very large gun propped next to him. Shinji raises a brow, but before he can say anything the raccoon jabs a finger at them and demands, “Which of you chuckos is the reason I had to take a detour after dragging my ass halfway across your frostbitten asscrack of a planet to begin with?”

Shinji snickers, jerking a thumb at Clint. “Ask the mass murderer,” he says, and without waiting for permission he collapses into one of the seats lining the walls, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankle.

Clint gives him a look, but the raccoon perks up. “Another criminal?” he asks. “You’re in good company, even if it looks like something died on top of your skull. Rocket, bounty hunter and savior of at least one galaxy, nice to meetcha.”

“Hawkeye,” Clint says, touching his hair defensively, and ignores the glance Shinji levels at him, curious at the sudden use of a codename. “You’re one of the Guardians, right?”

Shinji’s had enough experience reading human emotion on a non-human face with Komamura to recognize the flicker of belligerent grief that crosses Rocket’s expression. “Yeah,” he says, like it’s a challenge. “Pretty much the _last_ Guardian. Unless Nebula counts, and I’m pretty sure Gamora’d kick my ass from the afterlife if I said she didn’t. But she was a probationary member or some shit, so hell if I know. That’s Quill’s department.” He pauses, ears flickering back for an instant, and then says bitterly, “Guess that _was_ Quill’s department.”

Shinji tips his head, concentrating for a moment, but he can’t feel any ghosts hanging around Rocket, no threads of tethers attached to him. Whoever he was left behind by, they probably went out with the vanished half of humanity.

“This gonna be a long flight?” he asks, because it doubles as a distraction, draws Rocket’s eyes to him and away from whatever person he’s thinking about right now. “If I’m not goin’ to have time to powder my nose, I wanna know now.”

Clint rolls his eyes, but Rocket snorts. “She’s not the _Milano_ ,” he says, “but she’ll get us back to HQ in a few hours. You out here to recruit a new sucker, Hawkeye?”

“You’ve been talking to Natasha,” Clint says, a little sourly. “I didn’t recruit him, I just offered him a ride since he’s going in the same direction. Shinji, Rocket. Rocket, Shinji Hirako.” Then he gives Shinji another, narrower look, and asks, “You speak English?”

There wasn’t a hell of a lot to do, being on the run from Aizen. Most of their downtime had to be spent out of sight, too, and Shinji may have gotten a little too invested in trashy American shows once television was a thing. Subtitles only went so far, so picking up the language was an easy choice. It’s hardly the first one Shinji’s taught himself, after all.

“I speak a lot of languages,” he says lazily, and gives Clint a grin. A whole hell of a lot of people have mistaken him for just a pretty face, or just a bastard with a sword, and Shinji loves it. Loves cracking expectations into tiny little pieces even more. He and Kisuke have that in common. _Had_ that in common. “Well? We gettin’ this hunk of metal off the ground sometime this year?”

“Hey, this hunk of metal is faster than anything else in your atmosphere,” Rocket retorts, but he spins his chair back around, patting the console like it might have taken offense at Shinji’s words and starting a flight check. “Unless Nebula’s back with the _Milano_ by now. I wouldn’t know, seeing as I’ve spent the last three weeks _freezing my hairy ass off_ in your fucking polar caps.”

“Least we still have them.” Clint pauses, halfway between the cockpit and the hold, and hesitates there. “You need a copilot?”

Rocket scoffs. “A Kree warship she ain’t. I can manage. Got a couple things I need to test anyway, so sit your ass down and let me work.”

“Test,” Clint repeats dubiously, but he takes the seat across from Shinji, setting his bow beside him.

“Yeah, Stark an’ I are working on a new thruster array,” Rocket says distractedly, and there’s a heavy thrum. Shinji curls his fingers against the seat as the craft lifts, right up off the ground in a vertical rise, and tries not to let a touch of discomfort show on his face. It’s been years since he was on a plane.

Thankfully, Clint doesn’t seem to notice. All of his attention is on Rocket as he asks, “Tony’s around? He okay?”

“What, you think I’d let the one guy capable of following when I take a starship engine apart just disappear into retirement?” Rocket makes a rude sound. “Hell no. Finding an intelligent human is like finding a fucking Infinity Stone in a Troll doll. Which I’ve _done_ , so I should know. Makes me want to meet that princess that got dusted. Stark says she was even smarter than him.”

“Princess Shuri, of Wakanda?” Clint asks. “You didn’t meet her?”

“Everyone got dusted right after we hit the battlefield.” Rocket sounds impossibly bitter. “Didn’t exactly have a lot of time for interstellar lightspeed travel talk. Hang on, we’ve got clearance.”

Shinji has just enough time to brace himself before the plane starts to move, and out the front he can see it practically leap past the other planes as they take off like they’re standing still. It’s interesting, distantly; clearly this is something beyond most planes, and the fact that Clint is so familiar with it means he’s used to it. Whoever he usually works with probably has means, and Shinji’s curious. He tamps it down, though, touches Sakanade’s hilt again, and—

“Hey,” Rocket says, an odd note to his voice, and he glances at the instrument panel, then back at Shinji and Clint with a strange look. “I hate to throw a wrench into this happy little party, but right now my instruments are showing we’ve got a science experiment, a Terran, and a dead body aboard. I’m pretty sure which one of those is me, so if one of you assholes wants to fess up, I’m all ears.”

Clint pulls a face, then levels a finger at Shinji. “I’m not _touching_ this one,” he tells him. “You’re the freak here, why don’t you tell him?”

Shinji flips him off with a roll of his eyes. “Don’ worry about it,” he says to Rocket. “It’s a thing. I won’t start decomposin’ all over your ship, pinky swear.”

Rocket just shrugs. “I thought you were taking the _me_ thing pretty well for a normal Terran,” he says, waving a hand at himself. “Usually there’s a hell of a lot more staring, or fucking baby talk. Your people are all shitheads about escaped science experiments, you know that?”

Shinji laughs, full of sharp edges. “Oh yeah,” he says, grinning viciously. “All fucking _flavors_ of shithead, definitely.”

Both Clint and Rocket cast him looks for that, Rocket with a touch of surprise and Clint with narrow suspicion, but Shinji ignores them both. He settles in, getting comfortable, and asks, “We landing somewhere in New York?”

“Yeah,” Clint says, a little slow, like he’s trying to work out all the implications of what Shinji just said. “Upstate. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”

Souls don’t need to sleep anywhere near as much as living humans, but Shinji’s been dragging his sorry ass from one thing to the next for so long that he can’t remember the last time he actually took the time to collapse for a while. “Wake me when we’re close,” he says, and tips his head back against the wall.

“Want a mint on your pillow, too?” Clint drawls. “How about a cocktail?”

“If you’re offerin’,” Shinji retorts, and lets his eyes slip mostly closed. “I want you in a skirt to deliver it, though.”

Not far enough closed to miss the flicker of one of Clint’s hands, though. Without moving his head, Shinji snorts, then signs back, “I know you are, but what am I?”

There’s a moment of stunned silence, and then a laugh, bright and warm and almost startling. “Screw you,” he signs, and Shinji snorts.

“You wish,” he retorts, and finally lets his eyes close, the thrum of the engines heavy around him. _Sakanade?_ he asks silently.

Just for a moment the world blurs, halfway between the cold metal of the plane and the heat of a golden desert rolling over fallen monoliths. Sakanade lifts her head, a woman’s face in a heavy headdress of gold, dark skin warm against the brilliance, and bares sharp teeth in a cat-smile. She settles herself there, lion body coiled like she’s about to leap, and folds her wings out in a sweep of dark feathers.

“Sleep,” she tells Shinji, caught in that strange half-step between his inner world and the waking one. “I’ll keep watch.”

After a hundred years of being hunted, this is an old pattern, but always a comforting one. Shinji breathes out, and lets himself slip down into sleep, trusting Sakanade to keep him safe.

 

 

The pitch of the engines changing brings Shinji out of a restless sleep and right to alertness, and he lifts his head, rolling upright from where he’d stretched out across the bank of seats. There’s a knot in his back that makes him grimace when he stretches it out, but when he glances towards the cockpit the rush of clouds has turned to green as the ship descends.

Along the other wall, Clint is slumped in a seat, arms folded over his chest and head tipped back, clearly asleep. Careful to mind his steps, Shinji rises, slips past him into the front, and drops into the seat beside Rocket. “Almost there?” he asks.

Rocket has a tablet out, computer code running across the screen as he types. “Yeah,” he says, glancing up briefly. “Twenty minutes to HQ. The local airports get pissy if I come in high and fast, though, and Captain fucking America always ends up lecturing me about it, so hard pass on that one. We’re doing this the pussy way.”

Shinji snickers, because he’s heard Zaraki use that exact tone when he talks about the Captain-Commander and his rules. “Boring as hell,” he agrees, and pulls his communicator out of his pocket, checking for any messages. There’s a note from the Twelfth about where the main death god in the area will meet him tomorrow, just to touch bases, and Shinji grimaces. If he’d known that, he’d have just asked them to drop him off in the city. At least he’s in the same rough area now, though.

There’s also a file waiting, the information Nemu promised on the Avengers, with an attached note about updates to come once she hears back from other parts of Soul Society. Shinji sets that aside to read later, then glances up at the approaching coastline. They’re too high up still to catch much detail, but—

Shinji’s sure he knows what it looks like. The same as the rest of the world, by all probability. Half as many people as should be present, the gaping wound where the rest should be, and the relentless, grim struggle towards anything resembling normalcy. Shinji _hates_ it.

“So,” Rocket says, glancing up and pinning Shinji with a narrow stare. “Science experiment, huh?”

Shinji’s grin is all teeth and no humor. “Megalomaniacal assholes always try to play god. Fuckin’ burn them all down.”

A hundred years isn’t enough to blunt the memory of the Hogokyu’s power in that first moment, the surge of malevolence, the _hunger_ that washed over him, ate through him, sank claws into his soul and _tore_ like nothing he’d ever felt before. And then, even worse, he’d seen Aizen through the haze and _known_.

Shinji always suspected something, but he’d been complacent. Suspicious, but steady in it, and it left him vulnerable. Maybe he hadn’t quite allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security, but…it was the next best thing. Aizen’s attack still came out of left field, caught him off guard. If he’d been smarter, faster, _better_ —

But he hadn’t, and it left him with a Hollow for a soul and a century to stew in his fury and hatred.

“Pulse rifle to the dick always worked pretty well for me,” Rocket says, and that’s a definite grin, the promise of blood and mayhem only just tucked away behind it.

Shinji snorts, kicking up a foot on a piece of the dash that doesn’t have any instrument panels, then leaning back in his seat. It’s almost obscenely comfortable. “Shoulda tried that,” he muses. No one’s been down to check whether Aizen got dusted or not, but…it might be worth it for that. Shinji is glad that Kisuke and Ichigo managed to kick Aizen’s ass before he could go butterfly-god on the world at large, but—it smarts, too, just a little, that Shinji couldn’t match him.

“Only one cure for that level of shithead,” Rocket agrees, and beyond the windscreen the green blur starts to gain detail as they slow. Shoving his tablet to the side, Rocket takes the yoke again, and asks, “You a friend of that guy with the bad hair?”

Shinji snickers, because if he thinks Clint's halfhearted mohawk is bad, he should really meet some more Shinigami. “I yelled at him to shape up,” Shinji says lazily. “An’ then I kicked his ass all around the neighborhood.”

Rocket’s laughter is sharply amused. “Yeah? That why you smell like blood, and you’ve got holes in your suit?”

“I'm still standin’, aren’t I?” Shinji retorts, though he’s not offended. Any fight he can walk away from is a win, more or less. “’Sides, I got what I wanted. If people keep killin’ without pause, ‘s gonna get ugly. Too many dead and not enough living.”

Rocket makes a face. “Fuck Thanos,” he says viciously. “Thor should have taken longer cutting his fucking head off.”

That sounds like familiarity more than anything, and Shinji shoots him a sideways glance. If the Avengers defeated Thanos, and Rocket knows the guy who did away with the asshole, that means Rocket knows the Avengers. Shinji opens his mouth to ask, but before he can there’s a huff over his shoulder.

“You didn’t _win_ , you _cheated_ ,” Clint tells Shinji, leaning in between their seats with his elbows braced on the tops. When Shinji glances up, it’s to find that his eyes are fixed on the rush of the countryside below, like he’s waiting for something to come into view. “I put at least two arrows in you, so shut your mouth.”

Shinji rolls his eyes. “One ‘cause I wasn’t expecting it,” he retorts, “seeing as you were up a buildin’ and shouldn’t have been able to see _me_ , let alone put an arrow in my shoulder. And the second was ‘cause I moved and you missed.”

“No, I distinctly remember hitting you.” Clint makes a face. “I even hit you more than I meant to. If that doesn’t count, I don’t know what would.”

“I stepped right into it an’ made it easy for you—”

“It _counts_ —”

“If I’d moved a little slower you woulda missed me entirely, so it _doesn’t_ —”

“Ladies, ladies, you're both pretty,” Rocket interrupts, rolling his eyes. leaning forward, he hits a button and says, “Hey, if anyone’s feeling like shooting me out of the sky on my approach, remember that I shoot back.”

“Is that a challenge?” a woman asks, dry amusement in her tone. Shinji cocks his head, because there’s _something_ in her voice that strikes him, a flicker in the air, but he can't quite pick it out, like it’s at the very edge of his senses.

Rocket snickers. “Captain,” he says. “Back from the ass-end of the universe?”

“I took some leave,” the woman confirms. “All right, Rocket, you’re cleared to land. Want an escort on your way in?”

“If you’re planning to play sentient firework again you can fuck right off,” Rocket says, but he sounds the closest he has to cheerful so far. “That shit screws up the sensors and you know it.”

“Build better sensors, then,” the woman counters, like a challenge, and closes the line with a click.

“Captain?” Clint asks, frowning a little. “Did Cap decide to pass on his shield?”

With a snort, Rocket pulls up, letting the plane slow even more, and starts flipping switches. “Captain Marvel,” he corrects. “She didn’t show up until after Thanos snapped half of the universe out of existence, so I guess you wouldn’t have met her. Spends most of her time fucking up the Kree, since she’s got _some_ taste at least.”

Shinji lets his fingers slip through the fabric of space, just enough to touch Sakanade’s hilt. There's a strong suspicion building, but he doesn’t say anything, just slouches back in his seat and watches the landscape run past as they get lower. If what he thinks is right, if this really is the Avengers he’s fallen in with, he’s going to have to be careful. Even more careful than normal, but—if he plays his cards right, he might be able to pull together a little more information on all of this for the Twelfth. They’ve been trying to work out just what Thanos did since it happened, and if they know more, they might be able to come up with some kind of fix.

He’ll wait for confirmation, sit on his suspicions until he’s figured out if he’s right. If he _is_ , though, he’ll have to call Shunsui, get his input. Rushing in won’t help them here, but if Shinji's got his foot in the door, an in with the Avengers and access to their base, it will open up a hell of a lot of opportunities.

And then, like the Sōkyoku released, there's a surge of power that practically knocks Shinji back in his seat, rattles his teeth, _wrenches_ at his soul. He hisses, jerking up even as Sakanade roars in his mind, all bristling feathers and claws suddenly unsheathed. She surges forward, and in the same instant Clint recoils with a yelp, lunging backwards like he’s going for his sword.

Shinji can’t focus on him, though; all his attention is on the fire-bright star rising in front of them.


	7. Chapter 7

It’s a woman. A woman burning gold and red and blue, emitting energy like Yamamoto in a temper, but vaster. Sharper, too—Yamamoto's reiatsu was always a deadly, devouring thing, but this just burns, and Shinji can't compare it to anything but a star.

“Fucker,” Rocket says, but he sounds delighted even as he shakes his fist at the woman, jerking the yoke. The plane dips, angling sharply as it blazes past her, and Shinji can just see her laugh before they’re away. Not for long, though. An instant later she drops in front of the plane, drifting along without any apparent effort, and when Rocket mutters a curse and throws them into a steep dive she matches them, spiraling around the craft like it’s a game.

It probably is, Shinji thinks, and closes his eyes. Sakanade’s dark, corrosive power flickers over his skin, halfway to a bone-white mask, and he tamps it down hard, drags it back under control even in the face of that supernova of power. Sakanade snarls in his head, fighting back, but Shinji shoves her back into his soul and glances behind his seat. Clint is clinging to a strap, looking pale, but his eyes are on Shinji, not the woman flying beside them.

Right. A strong Hollow’s reiatsu, right up against the senses of someone who hasn’t felt more than a Shinigami's power before, in an enclosed space, with a threat outside the window. Of course he’d have a bad reaction.

“I told you,” Shinji says, the closest to an apology he’s going to get. “Mine’s meaner.”

Clint snorts, but his eyes flicker over Shinji in a quick dart, like he’s looking for more traces of darkness clinging to him. “There’s mean and then there’s _that_ ,” he says. “What the hell?”

Shinji jabs a thumb at the woman, just as she grazes the windscreen in a deliberate taunt. “She startled me, ‘s all,” he says. “Not everyday a goddamn force of nature decides to play chicken with you.”

Rocket snickers, then hits the comm button again. “You’re scaring my passengers, you goddamn nightlight,” he calls.

The laugh that gets him is almost stolen in the roar of wind over the comm link. “I think that’s your flying,” the woman retorts, and then pulls away like they’re standing still, impossibly fast as she arrows towards a gleaming silver complex just coming into view.

“Shit,” Shinji mutters, watching her go. That’s not something Soul Society knows about, apparently. What’s a human doing walking around with that much power?

“Yeah,” Rocket agrees. “Carol gets that response a lot.” He starts the descent, then circles the complex in a wide sweep as he slows. There’s another ship to one side, orange metal and glass, and when he catches sight of it Rocket huffs, pleased. “Looks like Nebula’s back, too,” he says. “And she managed to keep the _Milano_ in one piece this time. Guess I don’t have to give her a virus.”

Shinji registers the words, but most of his attention is on the red and blue figure waiting at the edge of the landing strip as they settle. She seems entirely normal, unassuming to look at except for the burn of power that’s half-hidden now, just a steady thrum of it along Shinji's bones to give her away. It really is like the Sōkyoku given human form, and then amplified by a thousand. Clint probably doesn’t feel it, only just adjusting to opened senses, attuned to Shinji's power more than anyone else’s because Shinji was the one to knock his senses wide, but it’s all Shinji can feel, and it makes his teeth ache subtly with the force of it.

“Home sweet home,” Rocket says, and drops out of his chair, hitting one last switch and turning to watch the ramp descend again. “I take credits, US dollars, and firstborn children. Pay up, or next time I might space you by accident.”

Clint is already halfway to the ground, though, and Shinji rolls his eyes at both Clint and Rocket, then rises to his feet, prodding at Sakanade. She snarls, a lion’s loud burst of fury, and swipes at him with dagger-like claws. No help from that quarter, Shinji thinks sourly, and waves a hand at Rocket before he heads for solid ground.

“—so you're Hawkeye,” Carol is saying as he steps down onto the pavement. She holds her hand out to Clint, who takes it, and Shinji can't help but wince inwardly. Getting his fingers in the middle of that much energy seems like a bad idea. “I've heard a lot about you.”

“If you’re listening to anything Nat said, I’d like to inform you none of it is true,” Clint says. “Especially anything she’s said about Budapest.”

It makes Carol smile, quick and bright, and she glances past Clint to Shinji, then pauses. Shinji meets her stare with narrow eyes, inclines his head and very deliberately sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat. Carol’s brow goes up, but amusement flickers across her face as she nods back.

“Welcome to Avengers HQ,” she says. “Natasha didn’t tell me there was a new recruit.”

Satisfaction feels like a warm curl in Shinji's gut. He was right about them being the Avengers, and that means he’s exactly where he needs to be to figure things out. It takes effort to contain his grin, but he manages it, opens his mouth—

“There’s not,” Rocket says, and clumps down the ramp with that massive gun slung over his back. “I picked up a hitchhiker somewhere over the Pacific. Figured we could sacrifice him to whatever marauding horde you pissed off this week, get them off our backs for a while.”

“More like sacrifice him to whoever you stole from last,” Carol retorts, but she’s smiling, and as soon as Rocket is close enough she offers him her hand. He takes it, and Carol leans down, pulling him into a shoulder-bumping hug that had to have taken some logistical work to execute so smoothly.

“If we’re talkin’ sacrifice, lemme just say I’m pretty damn underqualified,” Shinji drawls. “’Specially in the virgin category. Maybe the _good person_ and _not an asshole_ parts too.”

It makes Carol grin, and she looks him over. “We’re working with a handicap,” she says, and a flick of her hand takes in the world at large. “Some sacrifices in quality have to be made.”

Her power reminds him of something, Shinji thinks suddenly, startled. Something he’s felt before, but—a claxon, instead of an echo. There’s something familiar about the burn of her strength, the pulse of it, but he can't think what.

“You know,” a new voice says, throaty and amused, “we only just got through that tabloid’s run of blood sacrifice accusations. You're not helping.”

Even from where he’s standing, Shinji can see the way Clint jerks, the sudden, sharp way he turns to face the building. Shinji looks, too, and finds another woman there, blond hair just touched with red roots, shoulder propped against the wall, a small smile on her face.

“Nat,” Clint says, stunned, and her smile widens.

“Hey, Clint,” she answers, and pushes upright, taking a step towards him.

Instantly, Clint moves. He bolts across the space between them, even as the woman reaches for him, and sweeps her up in his arms with a sound that could be a laugh or the choked edges of a sob. She wraps her arms around him in return as he spins them around, and as her feet touch the ground again she pulls him in. Shinji thinks for a moment that she’s going to go in for a kiss, but they don’t. Instead, they drop their foreheads together, still hanging on to each other, and Clint closes his eyes.

The woman doesn’t. She’s watching him still, eyes fixed on his face from under her lashes, like she’s afraid he’s going to disappear in front of her again.

A hand touches his shoulder, a shock of sun-sharp static that makes Shinji twitch, and he turns to look at Carol, taking one half-step back out of range.

Carol studies him for a moment, no offense in her face, just assessment, and then tips her head towards the building. “Come on,” she says. “Natasha said you were staying for a while. There’s a room ready.”

“He’s SHIELD,” Rocket chimes in, and thumps Shinji on the hip. “Don’t think I didn’t see that badge you flashed at the airport.”

“’S not like you gave me time to get an introduction in,” Shinji drawls, and doesn’t let his pulse pick up. These are the Avengers, affiliated with SHIELD, and that means he’s going to have to tread carefully as far as mentioning anything about his work goes. _Maybe_ SHIELD outsources enough for him to get away with knowing very little about the setup, but admitting that seems like asking for trouble.

“We had a whole flight, but you spent it snoring like a chainsaw,” Rocket retorts, and slaps a palm to the scanner beside a door. There's a flicker of blue light before it opens, and he pushes in, letting Shinji duck through behind him. Shinji follows, casting a glance back at Clint and Natasha. They're still entirely wrapped up in each other, thought—literally—and don’t seem to have noticed the departure.

Apparently Clint was wrong about the person waiting for him being ready to murder him, Shinji thinks, amused, and keeps moving, following Rocket through a wide hangar and then down a hallway that opens into a wider corridor. There are doors set along the walls, with more scanners in place of locks, but Carol picks one halfway down the corridor and pushes it open without trouble.

“Your SHIELD badge should get you through most of the security,” she says over her shoulder, leading the way into a living area that sits up against what’s definitely a command center. It looks lived-in, Shinji thinks, casting a careful look over the piles of documents sitting there, the plate with a sandwich crust. Someone’s been spending a hell of a lot of time organizing and strategizing here. It makes sense, if the Avengers are as short-handed as the rest of the world.

“Makes me feel special when doors open for me,” Shinji says, and keeps moving, not letting his eyes linger anywhere even as he tries to take everything in. Making them suspicious is the last thing he wants.

Carol snorts, but tips her head at another silver corridor as Rocket makes a beeline for the systems in the command center without a backwards glance. “The ones that won't open for you are Avengers-only,” she says. “And the outer doors, so once you leave, you’ll have to wait for one of us to let you back in. Guest rooms are over here.”

“Thanks,” Shinji says, and Sakanade is pacing restlessly in his head, tension-tight fury and bristling indignation at facing something stronger than her, but he tamps down on her urge to fight and keeps his voice level as he says, “That was an impressive light show. Yer quite somethin’.”

Carol’s glance is veiled, quick. “That’s me,” she says, just a little dry. Pauses there, just outside a room without a lock, and looks at Shinji straight-on. “Fury was looking for people like me,” she says. “Years ago. People with abilities. Are you one of them?”

Shinji debates denying it, thinks about sidestepping the question with one of his own. _Fury_ , he thinks, a mental note to check the name later, but for right now—

Sliding a hand out of his pocket, he touches just the edge of his reiatsu, enough to draw Sakanade out of his soul in one smooth motion. She falls into his hand with an eager lunge against the barriers he’s put up, but Shinji fights her back with the ease of a hundred years of practice and halfway draws the blade, giving Carol a grin that’s full of teeth.

“Got a couple things up my sleeve,” he agrees easily, then lets the blade slide back home with a click and slings it over his shoulder. “Nothin’ quite so impressive as you, but I manage.”

“I bet you do.” Carol smiles, but it’s closer to a challenge than anything else, and she glances at Sakanade, then back at Shinji. “There’s a gym one level down if you want to get some training in. Most of us are there in the morning, if company’s your thing.”

Shinji's willing to bet that most people don’t get that sort of invitation, and it’s also not made out of the goodness of her heart. He grins lazily, slinging Sakanade over his shoulder, and asks, “This me?”

“Sure.” Carol pushes the door open and steps back. “Where exactly did Hawkeye find you again?” she asks.

Shinji has to slide right past her to get into the room, and that power is _familiar_. So goddamn familiar, and it itches at his bones, the knowledge that he’s encountered something similar before. “Tokyo,” he says lightly, and turns to face Carol without letting his smile slip. “Don’ worry, I won't be here too much. Got an assignment in the city.”

That eases a little bit of the tension from around Carol’s eyes, and she nods. “There are several SHIELD agents stationed nearby,” she says. “If you want to touch bases with them. I assume you have their numbers.”

“Nah, but I can get ‘em,” Shinji says with a half-shrug. “Lemme powder my nose and get cleaned up, an’ I’ll put in some calls.” All to the Twelfth, but she doesn’t need to know that.”

Carol’s eyes flicker down to the bloodstains on his coat, and her mouth pulls into a wry, faintly sympathetic smile. “We’ve got some spare uniforms floating around,” she says. “I’ll find you one. Everything else should be in the room already.”

“Appreciated.” Shinji touches two fingers to his brow and then pushes the door shut, pointed but not rude. Steps back, letting out a breath, and rubs a hand over his face, trying to think of what he needs to do next. Shower, because he wasn’t joking about that, and maybe check the arrow wounds again, to see if they need more healing. And then—

He’s in the Avengers’ base, with all the potential information about Thanos and what he did at his fingertips. Finding it is probably best left for tonight, when everyone is asleep, and there’s no way Shinji is going to do it in his gigai. With so many fighters around, and Shinji himself unfamiliar with the place, that’s just asking to get caught.

Hopefully Carol’s power levels don’t mean she can see ghosts, though Shinji is fairly confident that her powers aren’t quite spiritual. He’ll have to avoid Clint, but that should be simple enough, and if there’s anyone else here who can sense him, Shinji hasn’t met them yet. He can't sense them, either, though Carol’s blocking a hell of a lot with her sheer brightness in his senses. Once he sits down, figures out how to tune her out, he’ll have a better idea of the situation.

His head hurts, the buzz of her presence too sharp, too loud. Shinji grimaces, rubbing at his skull, and turns for the bathroom, setting Sakanade on the vanity and kicking the door shut behind himself. He’s not about to let his sword out of his sight right now, even if it’s suspicious to walk around with her out in the open. Even when she’s on edge, Sakanade is the only one Shinji can trust here, and Shinji's got a mission to finish and a new lead on Thanos to report. He doesn’t have time to be twitchy right now.

 

 

“—guess he didn’t try to slit your throat, huh?”

Clint blinks, turning to look over at Rocket where he’s perched high up on one of the chairs that looks like it was built with him in mind. Captain Marvel is at the table behind him, paging through a report with a faint frown, and Clint can't see Shinji anywhere.

“Not _yet_ ,” Carol says. “Natasha, did you recognize him?”

Natasha squeezes Clint's arm gently, then steps around him. “If Clint's vouching for him, that’s enough for me,” she says, and Clint doesn’t wince even if he wants to. Shinji _isn't_ a SHIELD agent, and at some point that’s definitely going to come out. secrets like that don’t _stay_ secret, in Clint's experience.

When he looks up, though, three pairs of eyes are on him. The ones he cares most about are Natasha's, though; she’s watching him with a raised brow, face mildly interested but eyes sharp. “Clint?” she asks.

“He’s not standard SHIELD,” Clint says, and when Carol tips her head faintly he raises a hand to cut her off. “He’s got—”

“Abilities,” Carol finishes for him, and when Clint blinks, she shrugs. “He showed me. Pulling weapons out of thin air, among other things, right?”

 _You have no idea,_ Clint doesn’t say, though the urge to laugh is there, tight and mildly hysterical in his chest. “Yeah,” he agrees instead.

Natasha hums, dropping into the closest open chair and nudging Clint's ankle with a toe. “Makes sense that Fury would keep him quiet,” she says. “Him and people like him. After the infiltration of SHIELD, info like that is valuable.”

Rocket makes a dismissive sound. “If he’s a problem, we’ll deal with him,” he says, and then pointedly turns his stare on Clint. “’Sides, we’ve got other things to think about, right? Why’d wonderboy choose now to come slinking back? It’s not like we’re in the middle of fighting Thanos anymore.”

Clint considers being offended, but all he feels is tired. “Shinji convinced me,” he says, and Natasha's foot comes to rest against his calf, steady pressure as he takes a step closer to lean on the arm of her chair. “I can't—we’ve all lost enough people.”

Rocket looks away, shoulders hunched. “Whatever,” he says curtly. “Blondie’s probably not going to kill us in our sleep, so it doesn’t fucking matter.” When Carol and Natasha both raise an eyebrow in perfect sync, he waves a hand at them. “Not you, him. Too many damn blonds.”

“Seeing you as a blonde is still weird,” Clint tells Natasha, and she jabs him in the bicep with a knuckle. Clint makes a sound of protest, more because it amuses her than because it actually hurt, and tries not to think about the way his chest aches, grief or maybe relief or possibly something in between. He _missed_ Natasha. She’s been with him, always there no matter the distance between them, since Clint dragged her back to SHIELD the first time. Not having that these last two years was like being set adrift, and getting it back means more to Clint than he’d thought possible.

“I'm letting it grow back,” she tells him, and Clint signs _zebra_ only to have her jab him again. When he smirks at her, she raises a hand, signing _rooster_ right back, and Clint makes a sound of deep offense.

“This is _fashionable_ ,” he says.

Natasha's expression is offensively doubtful. “You just turned up with a guy whose bangs are cut at a forty-five degree angle,” she points out. “I think you gave up your right to have an opinion on fashion, Clint.”

“That has nothing to do with me,” Clint defends.

“Still better than anything I saw on Xandar,” Rocket says, and waves a hand. “When’s Rhodes getting back? And where’s Nebula skulking around?”

“They’re both at Tony's,” Natasha says, a thread of amusement in her voice, and casts a sly smile up at Clint as he peers down at her suspiciously. “When I said we let the blue android have your room, I may have forgotten how much time she spends out of it.”

“Nebula,” Clint repeats. “The other Guardian? She’s the android?”

Natasha tips her head in agreement. “She tries to keep out of the news,” she says. “I don’t think she likes the spotlight.”

“Those killer spy instincts, huh?” Rocket says dryly. “Yeah, you definitely need to be a highly trained covert operative to figure _that_ one out. Kudos for that.”

Natasha just smiles. “You’ll figure it out,” she tells Clint, and her mouth twists, bittersweet. “It’s not like there are a lot of people left to remember.”

Clint's seen moments of the new Avengers team on the news, caught glimpses of most of the members. The lack of Wanda, the inclusion of her name among the missing—that was one of the things that pushed him on, at first, drove him deeper. He’d been willing to do pretty much anything to protect her, and then, with a snap of Thanos’s fingers, she was gone. Pietro would have hated him for that, for failing the sister he left in Clint's care, and Clint has to close his eyes, rub a hand over his face to fight off the memories again. Too close to the surface, with him being back here, remembering Wanda in the compound. She and Vision are both gone now, and it _aches_.

By all odds, half of Clint's family should have survived. But he was unlucky, apparently. All of them are gone, right down to the last. Natasha's the only one remaining, and Clint can’t even call her family. She’s something closer, more like a piece of his own soul. If he’d lost her, too—

“Hey,” Natasha says softly, and her fingers curl around his wrist, callused and firm. “We’re surviving.”

Clint breathes out a soundless laugh, opens his eyes again. “We’re good at that,” he agrees, and her mouth quirks.

“So,” she asks. “Tokyo?”

“Nice city,” Clint agrees mildly, and—

There's a flicker out of the corner of his eye, silver light and a flash of arctic blue.

Clint wrenches around, arrow in hand and bow already rising, but the room behind him is empty. So is the hallway, too brightly lit for shadows, without a soul in sight.

“Clint?” Natasha asks, tension threaded through her voice. She steps up beside him, eyes doing a careful sweep of the area, and then glances over.

Carefully, slowly, Clint lowers his bow, slides the arrow back into his quiver with a decisive motion. Like that will somehow offset the fact that he’s jumping at shadows, he thinks, and grimaces.

“Sorry,” he offers. “I guess I'm jumpy.”

“Big change, being back.” Carol is watching him closely, but she doesn’t say anything else. Instead, she pushes to her feet, and tells Rocket, “I'm going to visit Monica while I have some leave left. If you need me, just call.”

“Sure.” Rocket glances up, then pauses. “Coming back at some point?”

“I’ll stop in again,” Carol promises. “The Nova Corps have been expanding, so I should have a little more time out this way for now.”

“Don’t take out any planes while you're showing off for the kid,” Rocket tells her. “And don’t roll your eyes at me, you walking supernova, I'm not the only one who gets Cap’s lectures, and if you're the reason I have to sit through another, I'm going to find a way to pants you, even if I have to build a time-travel device to do it.”

“You couldn’t manage it even when I was ten,” Carol retorts, and the whirl of her power coming to life lights up the room. She soars up upwards, towards a skylight that’s already sliding open for her, and vanishes into the sky.


	8. Chapter 8

The thud of a door and the sound of steps makes Clint crack an eye open, though he doesn’t move from where he’s sprawled over the couch. It’s the couch he’s supposedly going to be sleeping on, and Natasha hasn’t budged in her position, but Clint knows how to wear her down. Especially since she seems to be on monitor duty, and that’s already enough to make her restless. Clint can get her to agree to a guest room somewhere at the least, with enough exposure.

“Shouldn’t you be off by now?” a familiar voice asks, and Clint stills, raising a brow at the fact that Captain America is wandering in well after nightfall.

Natasha hums, and that’s her _pleased with myself about the surprise you’re about to get_ sound. “Rocket got back late, so I thought I’d give him the night off,” she says. “And Wong is following a lead in Turkmenistan, so he couldn’t make it in. It’s just monitor duty.”

“Still.” It sounds like Steve is frowning. “Did Rocket find that man from the reports?”

“Rumor has it he can teleport,” Natasha says dryly. “And he’s got a partner. A Mexican national, as long as his ID is correct. It could be fake, but there’s a Julio Richter from Guadalajara who matches the description.”

“You sent it on?” Steve asks, and a chair creaks as he sits down.

“Interpol has the file now, and they’ll keep an eye out for movement,” Natasha confirms, amused, and leans back. “Though if this guy really can teleport I doubt he’s going to stop at crossing points and get his passport stamped.”

Steve sighs. “At least we’re trying,” he says, faintly frustrated, and then pauses. Clint can imagine him looking Natasha over, because when his voice comes again, it’s suspicious. “You look happy. Set someone up?”

“Would I do that?” Butter wouldn’t melt in Natasha’s mouth.

“Who?” Steve sounds resigned. “If it’s going to blow up spectacularly—”

“Not everyone is you and Sharon,” Natasha retorts. Clint winces faintly, because she’s always cutthroat but never more so than when she’s offended, and then sits up carefully. Steve’s back is to him, but Natasha is facing him, and when she meets his eyes she smirks. “But no, no set-ups. I found something I’d been missing, that’s all.”

“If this is about your favorite knife,” Steve starts, exasperated, and Clint slides over the back of the couch, perfectly soundless, and tosses an arrow up into the air. It flips, and the weighted head comes down with just enough force to bury itself in the table between Steve and Natasha.

Instantly, Steve jerks. He wrenches around, one arm coming up like he’s going to block with the shield he isn’t carrying, and then freezes as his eyes land on Clint.

“Hey, Cap,” Clint says, and tries for a grin. It’s only a little wan. “The lumberjack beard is a good look on you.”

“Clint.” The look on Steve’s face is pure, raw relief, and he steps forward, reaching out. Clint reaches back, and Steve hauls him into a hug, full of the scratch of beard and a lot of muscles and sheer _warmth_. It’s times like this that Clint totally understands Tony’s longstanding crush on Captain America. Or what _was_ his longstanding crush; even in the face of Thanos, everything with the Accords still stings.

Clint didn’t find out until much, much later, from Natasha, about Bucky and Tony’s parents. And—he gets it, he does, because Barney was family too, but it all left a bad taste in his mouth, even with the treatment of Wanda.

“Clint,” Steve says again, somewhere between joy and bewilderment, and pulls back to look at him. “You—we couldn’t find you, and the farm was empty—”

It takes effort not to let his smile become a grimace. “Yeah,” Clint says. “Sorry,” even though he doesn’t mean it nearly as much to Steve as he did to Natasha. “The vanishing was deliberate, not…sabotage, or something. I needed some time.” Needed more than he got, or something different than what he picked for himself, too, but Clint isn’t about to say that. Not right now.

There’s a slant to Steve’s mouth that says he catches a hint of the words anyway, and he clasps Clint’s shoulder tightly for a moment. “You’re back now,” he says, like that’s all that matters. “It’s—really good to see you again.”

“Same, Cap,” Clint returns, pressing a hand over his for a long moment before he steps back a pace. Grins at him, only slightly forced, and says, “Nat’s threatening to make me sleep on the couch—”

“Not a threat, Barton, a _promise_ ,” Natasha points out, mild enough to be a warning.

“—but I _know_ you’re not that cruel,” Clint continues over the interruption. “Want to intervene on my behalf?”

Steve raises his hands and takes three deliberate steps back, putting himself out of the line of fire. “I think that’s something you should work out between yourselves,” he says, and when Clint levels a pout at him, he grimaces, gives in. “Natasha…”

“Keep your nose out of it, Steve,” Natasha says mildly, and passes Clint, pausing to flick him lightly in the forehead. “Share with your new friend if you really want a bed, Clint.”

“Aww, _Nat_ ,” Clint whines, but Natasha waves a hand over her shoulder.

“I’m making myself a sandwich,” she says. “Anyone else?”

Clint opens his mouth to agree, then pauses at the look on Steve’s face. He raises a brow, and Steve says in an undertone, “She’s been on a peanut butter and potato chip kick.”

Clint closes his mouth. Pauses, grins, opens it again, and calls down the corridor, “I finally infected you, Nat!”

“There’s no marshmallow,” Natasha calls back, pointed, and a door closes firmly.

“Close enough,” Clint mutters, even though she can’t hear him any longer. For a moment, he considers whether he really trusts Shinji enough to share, then runs a hand over his hair and grimaces. He does, and that’s kind of the problem, because he _shouldn’t_. But if all of this is a hoax, a plot, it’s a hell of an elaborate one.

“Friend?” Steve asks, even as he moves towards the table, detaching a device from his arm and setting it down carefully. Not SHIELD tech, Clint thinks, eyeing it; it’s not Tony's either, though that’s…probably predictable.

“SHIELD agent,” Clint says, because if Shinji's ID is good enough to get him past security in most places, and then fool Rocket, it’s probably good enough to hold up to a cursory examination by Captain America. “I met him in Tokyo, and he needed a lift to the states. We’re not that close, and Nat is just being mean.”

Steve snorts, settling into his chair again and pulling his gloves off. “She’s good at that,” he agrees, amused, and then just looks at Clint for a long moment. “I'm glad you made it back,” he says finally, but Clint hears what’s underneath the words. _I'm glad you survived the snap_ , and it aches a little, because—because Clint _isn't_. He doesn’t have a death wish, but if he had the chance, if the die rolled again, he’d put himself on the losing side and hope like hell that it would save Lila, or Cooper, or Laura. He wouldn’t even hesitate.

Instead of answering, he flashes Steve a wry smile, then snags his bow and sword from where they're leaning against the couch. “There are still showers in the gym, right?” he asks.

“Almost where we left them,” Steve agrees, equally dry, though there’s a flicker of something tired on his face, something like pain. Clint pauses, confused, but Steve turns back to the piece of tech on the table, runs his fingers over it like he’s lost in thought, and then asks, “You know where the guest rooms are?”

Clint snickers. “I won't tell Natasha you said that,” he promises, then waves a hand and heads out of the room, following the long, sweeping curve of the hallway towards the stairs. It’s brightly lit, all sleek chrome and white and glass, and if Clint doesn’t think too hard it could almost be the same place it was years ago, before all the insanity of the Accords and the Avengers getting torn apart. Tearing _themselves_ apart, and in the wake of everything he’s lost the memory just makes Clint feel tired. He’d said things, in the Raft, that he didn’t mean and can't take back, and he regrets them. Regrets a hell of a lot, because maybe, _maybe_ if they’d all be together, working as one, Thanos wouldn’t have won. But they weren’t, they didn’t, and now there's no fixing it.

Clint sighs, rubbing his temple to ward off the oncoming headache, and ghosts a touch over the curve of his bow, quick and comforting. He hasn’t been using it much; he’d been paranoid—probably rightly so—that any sign of arrows at a crime scene would be enough to bring him to Natasha's attention, and he’s decent enough with a sword, anyway. He’s missed it, though, because the bow is _him_ , and—

At the end of the hall, right at the top of the stairs, there's a shimmer of blue and silver.

Clint has his bow up and an arrow on the string before he can even think, braced for anything. In the empty echo of the hallway, his breaths seem far too loud, unsteady, unnerving, and he scans the stairs, flicks a glance at the next bend of the hall, and wonders if this is the part of the horror movie where the lone blond gets picked off. Clint hadn’t thought his cup size was high enough for that.

“Who’s there?” he calls, and wonders if Steve is picking this up on the monitors, if he’s getting strange flickers of motion or just seeing Clint waving an arrow around and talking to himself. He’s not crazy, though. He’s not seeing things. This hasn’t happened outside of the compound, and Clint's not about to write it off as seeing something that isn't there. That’s how people get killed on an op.

And in horror movies, but Clint's not about to go there just yet.

“Anyone?” he calls, but the flicker of light stays stubbornly gone, and Clint is alone in the corridor.

“Fuck,” Clint mutters, blowing out a breath, and lowers his bow. That’s probably not a good sign, right? Invisible things never are.

He’ll talk to Natasha about it, he decides, sliding the arrow back into his quiver. Natasha's been on even more sketchy ops than he has, and she knows he wouldn’t bring things up unless they were real. If he tells her that he’s noticing something in the compound, has seen it more than once, she’ll believe him. If he knows Tony, there are a thousand sensors built into every inch of this place, too. It shouldn’t be too hard to check whether something is here.

“Gym,” he tells himself firmly, and starts moving again. “Get a shower, get some food, get Natasha. Preferably in that order. Maybe some sleep, eventually.”  Shinji probably won't mind surrendering his bed for a while. Or, well, he _will_ , and he’ll probably complain about it, but Clint has blackmail material, and he’s more than willing to use it.

 

 

Carol's departure is obvious, and in the wake of her power Shinji finally feels like he can take a full breath again, humming nerves settling to a dull buzz against his bones. Residual power, probably; Carol's spent a decent amount of time here, and it’s sunk into the walls, the air. Like a fine mist, and Shinji touches Sakanade’s hilt as he slips out of the gigai, wondering if there are any similarities to his own power. Probably not; Carol doesn’t seem the type to go for illusions.

If he stretches his senses out, it’s easy to feel the others in the compound now, living humans bright and burning. They’ve added another since Shinji bowed out, but he can't sense anything strange about the soul, so he’s willing to call it another human. A human in the command center Shinji was going to check out, and he grimaces, but pulls himself out of his body anyway. There have to be other systems, other ways to get what he needs.

Shinji's decent with computers. He’s decent with most things, after so many years, because he’s never been able to stand ignorance in himself. Still, he’s not trained _just_ for that, and it will take a hell of a lot of risk out of things if he farms this out to someone who has. Fishing his communicator out, he hits the call button, and immediately raises a brow when the light flickers from the yellow of a call waiting to the green of a call accepted.

“Lemme guess,” he drawls. “The world took some time off from becomin’ a shitshow, and yer so bored you were just waitin’ around, hopin’ I would call.”

“You getting into trouble is the high point of any day, Captain,” Akon says dryly. “We draw lots to see who gets to bail you out this time. It’s very competitive.”

Shinji pulls a face. “Don’t make me sound like Mashiro,” he protests. “I'm responsible, thanks.”

Akon hums, light and doubtful, but keys clack in the background. “You’re somewhere fascinating, too,” he says, faintly distracted. “There's enough energy coming off that place that my instruments are almost useless.”

“Yeah,” Shinji agrees with a huff. “I need you t’ run a comparison of all of… _this_.” He waves a frustrated hand through the air, including all of the residual force of Carol's power with the gesture. “Run it against everythin’ in your database, an’ whatever else you can get your hands on. It’s familiar, but hell if I know what it is.”

There's a pause, faintly surprised, and then a breath. “Yes, sir,” Akon agrees. “It might take a while, though. My sensors _really_ don’t like whatever it is.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not all that fond of it either,” Shinji mutters, and pokes his head through the door of the room. When he doesn’t find anyone loitering in the hallway, he steps out through the metal, and then asks, “So hypothetically, if I was in a place with a bunch a’ information about Thanos, how’d I go about gettin’ it to you?”

“About Thanos?” Akon asks, startled. “You’re sure?” Without waiting for an answer, though, his voice fades, going halfway to indistinct, but Shinji can hear his, “Lieutenant, over here!” clearly enough.

A moment later, after a brief murmur of voices, Nemu’s comes through clearly. “Captain Hirako, you found information for us?” she asks.

Shinji glances up and down the hall, then turns left. “That killer I was trackin’?” he says. “He’s an Avenger. Bow-guy. When he gave me a lift to New York, he put me up in their compound.”

There’s an indrawn breath. “Hawkeye,” Nemu murmurs, and Shinji can practically see her eyes narrowing. “How fortunate. Captain, can you move around undetected?”

“Long as I avoid him,” Shinji says, and doesn’t mention that Clint being able to see him is his fault. “I might not be able to when that other one gets back, either. The one puttin’ off those power levels. No idea if she could see me, but I don’ think I want t’ risk it.”

“Better not to,” Akon agrees, sounding distracted again. “Computer systems?”

“Pretty damn advanced, too, by lookin’ at ‘em,” Shinji confirms, and slips through a wall. It lands him in a wide kitchen area, where Natasha is just pulling a loaf of bread out of the cupboard. Shinji doesn’t pause, just ducks through the next wall and out into another corridor, picking his next door at random. If he can build up some kind of mental map of the place, it should be a lot easier to get around without being noticed.

Akon makes a thoughtful sound. “Hold your communicator up next to a computer and I’ll see what our options are,” he says. “If the security is light enough, I might be able to get in immediately.”

“I’ll get you Kuna,” Nemu says. “Anyone else?”

“Kuna will be enough,” Akon answers, a frown in his voice. “Unless there’s a lot more security than we’ve ever encountered in anything before. If you’d help, Lieutenant—”

“Of course,” Nemu says. “I’ll be back in a moment. Excuse me, Captain Hirako.”

She doesn’t wait for an answer. Shinji catches the sound of her steps retreating, and snorts quietly, passing through a storage room and then out into the monitoring room again. The new arrival is sitting at the table, slumped back in a chair with his legs stretched out in front of him, and Shinji circles him warily, but he gets no sense of reiatsu beyond the basics from the man. He’s a little scruffy, and he looks tired, still dressed in something vaguely similar to the SHIELD catsuit, if more heavily armored and decorated with bits of white.

“Got one human in the room,” Shinji says. “He’s normal, though. Can't see me. The computers are here, too.”

“Ready when you are,” Akon says dryly, and Shinji moves over to the closest bank of monitors, showing a map with points of red light flickering on and off. He studies them for a moment, but there’s no clear pattern, and as he watches several fade to white and then go out, and the words _no encounter_ write themselves across the corner, along with an upload icon. Then those fade, until the next flickering light going white brings them back.

Akon takes a breath, then huffs. “There's a firewall,” he says, displeased. “This is going to take a while. Can you leave the communicator somewhere out of the way?”

Shinji doesn’t like the idea of leaving one of his only methods of communication lying around, but he ducks around behind the monitors, finding a neat knot of cables that can balance the communicator well enough. “I’ll come back in an hour and check,” he says.

Akon’s sigh is tired. “I hope it doesn’t take that long,” he says wryly, “but that’s probably for the best. Thanks, Captain.”

“Good luck,” Shinji tells him, thinly amused, and straightens just as a door slides open. Natasha comes through, carrying two plates, and sets one down in front of the stranger before he drops into an open seat across the table, pulling her legs up under herself.

“Natasha,” the man says warily, but he tugs the plate closer.

“Steve,” Natasha retorts, sounding amused. “It’s roast beef.”

Hers, Shinji notes, is definitely not roast beef. Peanut  butter, maybe, but it crunches oddly when she bites into it. As soon as she swallowed, she asks, “Clint got distracted?”

“Headed for the gym,” Steve confirms, and warily picks up his sandwich. After one tentative bite, he starts wolfing it down like he hasn’t eaten in a week, and Natasha smiles.

Shinji leaves them to it, heading out in the direction Natasha just came from and then pausing, considering his options. An hour should give him enough time to at least get an idea of the layout, and maybe find a few off-limits places he can poke his nose into. Carol mentioned that the gym was one level down, and if that’s where Clint is, Shinji will avoid it for now, but that still leaves him with all the upper floors. There's an itch under his skin, and he doesn’t want to spend his waiting time sitting still.

He could, of course, go out and check the surrounding area for Hollows, but this seems more important, at least for now. The Twelfth hasn’t been able to learn much of anything about Thanos and what he did, and if they _can_ , maybe there's a way to reverse it, restore the balance. Shinji would do a hell of a lot to even make that a _possibility_ at this point.

In his soul, Sakanade is waiting, watching, her tail a quick lash across the sand as she paces. _I don’t like this_ , she tells Shinji the moment she has his attention.

“Neither do I,” Shinji admits, frowning. Carol's power, the familiarity of it, and then this, this _resonance_ in the air, like her but not quite her at the same time—it’s unsettling. “We shoulda picked up on this shit before. Even if she spends most of her time somewhere else…”

 _It’s a very large thing to miss_ , Sakanade agrees heavily, and sits down, resettling her wings. A drift of black feathers are whirled away by the moaning wind, scattering across the ruins, and she hunkers down, rests her chin on her paws with a low growl. _I know the Seireitei has been focused elsewhere, but_ —

“But,” Shinji agrees grimly, and taps his sword against his shoulder restlessly, then heads for the stairs at the end of the hall. Being intangible makes it a hell of a lot harder to use an elevator, after all. “Seems like not noticin’ the star in the west is a bit strange.”

 _We’ll find answers_ , Sakanade says, not a question and not something to be debated. Truth, steady and sharp, and Shinji grins, all teeth.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and pauses at the edge of the stairs, concentrating. Spreading his senses out, fighting through the veil of Carol's power, that strange secondary echo that feels similar but also different, to focus on the floor above. There are a handful of people, but—

Sakanade _roars_ , and Shinji moves on instinct, flipping up and over just as something blurs past where he was standing. He lands, unsheathing his sword and bringing it up in a sweeping slash, and—

 _Misses_.

Too fast to hit, the blur of blue and silver flickers around him, vanishes, but Shinji isn't fooled. He turns, adding a touch of reiatsu, a burst of flash-step, and reappears at the far end of the hall just as the blur slows.

It’s a man. A young man, his hair bleached silver but dark at the roots, and there's light around him, _power_. That echo Shinji's been feeling isn't an echo at all anymore, and he narrows his eyes, straightening up as the man comes to a sharp halt.

Not a man, Shinji thinks, tightening his grip on Sakanade. A _ghost_. But—

His Chain of Fate hasn’t decayed. It isn't even _there_. Shinji's been alive a long time, but he’s never seen that happen before.

“So you're the little mouse I heard,” he says lazily, and grins, bringing Sakanade up in the air in front of him as she howls and claws in his mind. He’s going to need to be fast to deal with this guy.

“And you're the rat creeping through the house,” the man retorts, and it only takes Shinji a moment to place his accent. Sokovian, unless he’s getting his Eastern European countries mixed up again.

“Well,” Shinji says, tipping his head as he watches for the small tells that give away motion. “I was just walkin’. That illegal now?”

The man looks him over, one corner of his mouth curling. It’s not a kind expression. “You're not SHIELD,” he says. “Does Clint know?”

“My uniform’s all bloody,” Shinji retorts. “Why’d I want to wear rags?”

There's no warning in the man’s body; one instant he’s still and the next there's just a blur where he was, blindingly quick. Shinji throws himself back, through a wall, and a punch just misses the tip of his nose. Getting a foot under himself, Shinji shoves upwards, leaps up and through the ceiling, but even as he emerges in a wide open room, that silver-and-blue blur bursts in, heading right for him.

Sakanade roars, fury and obsidian claws and tattered black wings, and Shinji laughs. Reaches up a hand in front of his face, curling his fingers, and feels them scrape cold bone. Grips, hard, and pulls his mask down out of thin air, letting it settle over his face.

The blaze of power that comes as Sakanade surges forward cracks the tile underneath him, knocks the stranger right off his feet, and Shinji grins.

“You're not the only one hidin’ tricks, kid,” he says, and lets the world blur.


End file.
